Four Years Later
by EmerlizleCullen
Summary: My Pre-Breaking Dawn version of what happens four years after Eclipse. Continuation due to popular demand. Cullens go back to high school, guy has a crush on Bella, Cullens take in a foster child, POV posted at beginning of chapter.
1. Bella Cullen: The Charade

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters originally introduced in the Twilight series, such as Edward, Bella, Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, Charlie, and the occasionally mentioned Jacob. I do however own the newer characters such as Andrew, Evalyn, Emma Jane, and Megan.**

Bella Cullen

Chapter 1 – The Charade

I gathered up my things in a small book bag. I couldn't believe I was actually going back to high school. I couldn't imagine what it must have been for Edward. For the better half of at least ninety years he spent in high school, only twice moving on to college. The first time was hell enough. I guess after a while it just becomes a pass-time, considering we have forever. Yes. _I _have forever, now, too.

It's been this way for four years now. Not the whole high school thing, but the me being a vampire thing. Though I wish the high school would be four years, because that would mean I was already done again. To me it wasn't that much different, aside from the fact that I didn't have to feed as much. I didn't see much change in my face, but for some reason, knowing I would be with Edward forever, I still felt significantly more beautiful. And of course, Edward had been the one. The one who led me to this life.

First, Edward arranged so I could have one last word with all of them. Jasper's stories had made me so sure that I would be so different in myself, not just physically. Edward was afraid that after the wedding, I would get too scared. He knew this was what I wanted. More than anything. Even if it wasn't what he hoped for, he wanted me to be happy. So he made sure I got to say some sort of weird, kind-of goodbye to all of them, even though I was stuck with them forever as at least my in-laws if the whole transition hadn't worked out. It was rather awkward, though. I wasn't as surprised when Jasper hugged me as I was when Rosalie did. I had even found some way to make Emmett, the Cullen clown, laugh. I think I asked him something like "Hey, when I get harder, will you feel softer?" I was referring to him being the big teddy bear of them all.

Carlisle shot up as much morphine into me as he could. I was, after all, still human at that point. He didn't really want to kill me of an overdose before Edward got to do the honor of making me immortal.

Then Edward led me to my new existence, first with his teeth. His venom, poisoning my body. I was his, in the best tangible way possible. Then his hand led me through the rest. He never left my side. I don't know which would have been worst, if he had stayed, like he did, knowing that every time I even winced the slightest, he was tearing inside? Or if he had left, making sure he wouldn't be tempted to drink anymore of my blood than that which had already touched his teeth, and, though I knew he wouldn't suffer, I was left to face the misery alone. Of course, being selfish, I think I definitely preferred what he chose. Three days straight and his hand never ceased to hold mine.

We had moved to Colorado by that point. Mountains everywhere, colder than Forks, no one we knew, and almost as many overcast days as Alaska. Four years and Edward had slowly eased me into a vegetarian vampire life. And "easing into it" does not mean that I hunted humans at the beginning. He slowly exposed me to larger and larger crowds of people, until finally, Carlisle believed that I was ready for high school, especially since we were in a larger city this time.

I pulled my bag over my shoulder with ease. It had never been this light. I had enjoyed my enhanced strength while it lasted. Rosalie used to have to spend hours at a time calming Emmett down every time I kicked his ass in any type of wrestling match. They had stopped calling me "newborn" when he began winning again. Sure, everything was still lighter to lift, a faster traveling time, and I didn't even feel much temperature change anymore, but I missed being threatening. I could still barely win an arm-wresting match, though, and I used that a lot as a gambling tool. I would bet against Emmett. Generally my penalty for losing would be that I would have to eat a whole bunch of human food, and Emmett's would be some huge favor I wanted, or to get him to do something that we would never let him live down. Now we had many things to taunt him with for the rest of forever. And Edward said that forever could get boring. Ha!

Oh, and of course Edward still can't read my mind – most of the time. Now I can let him in if I want. My ability is strange. I can let everyone, else in, too. I can also hear them, but unlike Edward, I can block them out. I don't have to hear the voices. I guess you could call it some sort of voluntary telepathic communication. I also have a little bit of Alice's talent. I can't predict random things like weather, stock markets, people's decisions, but I can see the results my decisions will have. Like all of the others, I could choose to use it. This comes in handy a lot. Because Edward was never able to read my mind, our relationship was always natural in the way that he actually had to talk to me to get to know me. He couldn't just pick my thoughts out and learn my personality. Now I can still keep that natural feeling by not just saying things because I know Edward's reaction. But now we can have silent conversations. That makes him REALLY happy.

I headed downstairs. Rosalie was the only one not down there, and she was behind me in two seconds.

"Sorry, I didn't know how I wanted to do my hair," she excused herself.

"Shall we go?" Emmett questioned. We all gave some sort of agreeing gesture and Edward sulked as he handed the keys to his precious Volvo over.

"Wait, I'm confused, I don't think I got all of the plan, here," I stated. Why wouldn't Edward be driving? He had done that all the time in Forks, hadn't he?

"Remember. I'm a junior," Emmett explained. I guess I hadn't been there for this part of the plan. "Rosalie and Jasper are sophomores, and you, Alice, and Edward are freshmen. Jasper and Rose are going to get their licenses soon. Edward and Alice are going to follow by getting their permits. You're not even 'old' enough for that if we want to go with your September birthday. I'm giving Rose, Alice, and Jasper a ride today. Rosalie's always going to be riding with me, and I'm going to rotate each day between you and Edward and Jasper and Alice. Because Jasper is a sophomore he gets first day. Got it now?" He didn't even have to ask. Vampire memory never fails.

"We're walking," Edward summed up, in case I hadn't understood. "It's not even as far as Forks High was from your house. I'm just bummed that he has to take _my_ car."

Edward took my hand in his and we all walked out the front door. Everyone but us jumped into Edward's car and headed for the school. Edward looked down at me. I almost saw a frown. _What did I do?_ I asked him. A little mind talk might cheer him up.

He seemed more amused by the idea that I didn't know I was doing something wrong. As if it were obvious, he lifted up my left hand. After kissing it a few times, he held it by the third finger. _You tried to sneak to school with your rings on_. Okay. He had had his fun.

"Sorry, I forgot," I apologized. He laughed again.

"No you didn't. Alice saw you deciding to try. You were thinking no one at school would catch you by the looks of it." Ugh. He was right. Once again, vampire memory never fails. I hadn't forgotten.

"Okay fine!" I replied stubbornly. I pulled into my pocket and grabbed my ring case. I had a feeling that even if one of the students didn't catch me, one of my siblings would. When my hand was free of all rings, he took it again and we began walking towards the school that we would be attending for the next four years, as long as no one would suspicion us.

Edward was right. It wasn't a long walk. Once we noticed other students walking, too, he pulled his hand out of mine, a sad look on his face. I looked at him questioningly.

_If we want to keep the charade up, we're going to have to be more careful. It's way harder to pretend this time, though. Of all the times I've gone to high school, I've never had to pretend that I wasn't in love with my wife, _he explained. I could sympathize with that. At least now with my enhanced mind, we could share or affection silently.

The plan that I _had _been there to hear was that we would slowly branch off. We would make it obvious that there were distinct pairs. Older brothers protecting their sisters. Of course, in our case, there wasn't much "age" difference, we were both freshmen. First, Emmett and Rosalie would share to their friends (I had convinced them to be a little more social this time) about Emmett confessing to Rosalie that he was glad they were adopted because he loved her to the ends of the earth. Jasper and Alice would do something similar, and Edward and I would follow. It was rather funny to accidentally catch Emmett in his thoughts, thinking about the story of how he would confess his love to Rosalie. Sure, I couldn't see plans like Alice could, but I could see them if someone was currently planning them.

We got to the school ahead of time. We had missed the summer schedule pick-up date due to the sun and had to get them today. The others were already there, of course. Emmett held the door to the front office for all of us.

"Slowpokes," he mumbled, but we all heard. The irony of any of us being slow sent us all into fits of laughter as we entered the room.

"You must be the Cullens," the kind lady at the front counter greeted us.

"Damn, even in big cities they know who you are," Emmett exclaimed. I opened my mouth to argue, but I heard an explanation in the secretary's head and I let her continue.

"No, it's just odd when we get so many students from one family missing the pick-up date. Generally one person comes down and gets them all." She began shuffling through some card-stock half-sheets. "Alice?" Alice danced up to grab her schedule. "Edward? Emmett? Isabella?" I winced at my full name and took my sheet. "Now we have the Hales, Jasper? Rosalie?"

Once we all had our schedules, we went outside and compared. Alice had convinced Rosalie and I to take Creative Movement together (now that I was actually graceful and all). Edward was taking AP Music Theory (along with more medical career classes), and Emmett and Jasper were taking Sports Development. Alice and I also had freshman math together. When I went to Edward to look at his classes, I almost whacked him. I didn't let him into my thoughts because he wouldn't have liked the words, but the message was clear enough on my face.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You shoved us in the same block," I explained.

"And that makes you unhappy?" he wondered.

"It was conspicuous enough senior year last time, and you were even gone for half of it! Seriously, Edward. We survived junior year, didn't we. Only biology together."

"True, but it's block. It's not like I made sure we were both in three other classes. Everyone in our history class is also going to be in our English and physics classes. It's not as conspicuous as you may think," he tried to justify.

"I see your point, but remember how hard it was? When we weren't sure how our relationship was going to unfold? How hard it was for us not to touch, not to scoot a little closer? At least senior year everyone knew we were dating and it didn't look awkward."

"What are you getting at Bella?" he questioned.

"There was no reason to do this. For once, I'm seeing your selfishness." I began counting on my fingers as I listed: "James: Dead. Laurent: Dead. Victoria: Dead. Werewolves: Nearly one thousand miles away. The Volturi…" I gestured to myself, indicating my new and improved stone figure "Done. Taken care of. You don't have to protect me anymore."

"You're right. I am being selfish, but are you really that disappointed. If it makes you happy next year I'll make sure we only have one or two classes together, okay? At this point it'll only look conspicuous if one of us tries to switch into a different block," he pointed out.

"Okay, but we can be in a few more classes than just two next year; hopefully our siblings would get the date train going. Then by next year we won't have to be so secretive…"

"I like the sound of that," he agreed. Unfortunately, the campus was quickly becoming crowded, so we could not hold hand on our way to class, but we were close, and he would be in my next class, not to mention we could talk all we wanted about anything that could not be discussed out loud, and that was all that mattered.

* * *


	2. Edward Cullen: An Invitation

Edward Cullen

Chapter 2 – An invitation

I sighed in relief as I walked side-by-side with my beautiful angel. I hated making even the slightest bit angry with me, or at anyone for that matter. Even now that we were equal she thought higher of me. I was constantly scared that the next wrong move I made, she would realize how much I didn't deserve her, that I wasn't worthy of her.

I turned my head to look at her again. It was a habit that I had taken to. Ever since I came back after those eight months, the sight of her face lit me up more than ever, and now that we could constantly be together, it wasn't that often that I wouldn't turn to look at her ever thirty seconds. Even though her blood no longer called to me, I was still addicted to her. Her scent still came to me, more powerful than ever, I just wasn't tempted to kill her anymore. If I had a pulse, whenever I saw her face it would be racing far faster than hers ever had at my touch.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear. It pained me to see her bare finger. It had taken me ages to get those rings on her, and for four years they had never been removed. Seeing her hand without her rings always reminded me of that August day. Once my mother's ring had been placed in the meadow, it had been the only time that she had taken it off, just to place a more significant band in its place. I had gone ecstatic when she rushed after the ceremony to slip it back on.

It was the most beautiful day anyone could imagine, except for the very first moment. Bella had managed to convince Charlie that spending the night with Alice would be the best thing for the wedding preparations. Of course, it had been in my room that she had slumbered, falling asleep in my arms as usual.

Alice was just outside the door. Her thoughts gave her away. She had planned on waking Bella with excited screaming and jumping. Instead, I came up with a brilliant plot to take Bella, and without waking her, jump out the window. By the time Bella finally woke up, we would be in Vegas. That shut Alice up right away.

Alice entered the room quietly, thinking something like _fine then, ruin my fun_. She let me have the honor of waking my bride. Her hair had always protected her neck from my cold touch, so it only took one kiss underneath her jaw to softly wake her up. Immediately Alice began pulling her towards the door. I got up to follow, but I guess I got too close to where the "magic" would happen. As if Bella could look any more beautiful. Alice shooed me away and Bella gave me a departing kiss, our last unmarried kiss.

I didn't have much to do. My hair was always unkept, so there wasn't much need of improving, and my simple black suit didn't need much work. Alice had thrown a fit over me just wearing a suit and not some fancy tux, but Bella had persuaded her by reminding her that she was basically going to be Alice's and Rosalie's guinea pig, so to at least leave me some peace. My lack of activities put a century of patience to use.

All of that flew out the window when Alice was far enough down the isle that I could see over the top of her head. That didn't take long with how short she was. It was the most significant sight in my world, the reason for my existence. Earlier, when she had just gotten out of bed, I didn't believe that she could've been more beautiful. I stood corrected as the figure that walked toward me had somehow managed to enhance her beauty more. One hundred years of waiting were not on my side. My endless patience had found a ceasing point. The slow human pace was, for once, not worth it. Generally the lack of speed meant more time spent with her, now it meant the longer it took for her to reach me. I just wanted to yell "Hurry the hell up!" It was irrational, however. Soon we would have forever, and time wouldn't mean a thing.

After all had been said and done, and she was forever mine, I fulfilled her final human wish. I was rather proud of myself for not killing her. And it was the best event of my life, aside from the moment that we had been tied together for the rest of eternity.

We've made it a good pass-time since. We have forever, so we have to be doing something. We use it as an apology mostly. There's next to nothing she could do to anger me, but if she reminds me of when I left her, even though I only get angry at myself, she apologizes. I end up apologizing a lot. Nearly a century of making fun of werewolves has gotten me into trouble numerous times, but her forgiveness is worth it. And then there are the times when there's nothing to apologize for. That's when we celebrate, which generally has the same results.

I smiled to myself. I had triggered her temper today. I would have to give her a proper apology. Bella didn't even have to look in my head to know what I was thinking. She let out a little giggle that no human could hope to hear.

I have never been more proud of Bella the entire time that I've known her. Even enduring what I put her through those eight months was less of a challenge than this. I would even have been proud of Jasper, too, if Bella hadn't been such a newborn.

Carlisle had always put us in smaller towns, for Jasper's sake, less people, but we were running out of cloudy locations, so we had do start moving on to bigger cities. Bella was never eased into that kind of crowd, yet she had never once shown any temptation to kill anybody. Jasper hadn't either, but like I said, Bella was new.

What was even more remarkable was the fact that all three girls had managed to keep the same dance partners for Creative Movement, and they had not suspected a thing. It might have been that they wore arm and leg warmers, and warned their partners about their cold hands, but still. I remember the first time I touched Bella, the extremity of the heat. If that was anything like the temperature difference on the other side, I think I would have questioned by now. And no one in the class could ever be as graceful as either of them. They must have run into them by now and wondered why they were so hard. Again, my mind came up with a solution for that: Vampire reflexes. They probably found some way to inconspicuously stop their accident.

Homecoming was approaching. Now that Bella was graceful, I was thinking of taking her to the dance, but that would look odd if neither of our siblings hooked up, yet. It was becoming unbearable.

I saw now why Bella was a little angry about the whole schedule thing. For some stupid reason, the teachers thought that since both of us had been "fostered" into Carlisle and Esme's home, we needed desperately to be near each other all the time in order to keep us from going insane. I guess "foster" now meant "my parents hate me and I'm emotionally unstable." I met foster kids at one school who thought "my parents hate me and I couldn't give to lumpy peanut covered shits what they think, I'm just glad to be out of there." So in every single class that we had together, we sat together. Talk about trying to conceal your emotions. We even had to watch the simplest gestures to make sure they would be normal for adoptive siblings.

"Jasper wants an apology," I casually brought up on the way to English.

"Ew," Bella exclaimed. "Why doesn't he just go to Alice for that?"

I laughed at her response. "Okay, so we're kind of on the same subject. He wants both of us to verbally apologize for what you're thinking about."

"Why? It's not like it involves him," she questioned.

"Actually, it kind of does. Apparently what we do is so strong he feels the tensions. If he's around Alice…he kind of can't help himself," I tried to imply. She figured out what I was saying and laughed.

"Poor Alice!"

"Actually, she rather enjoys it; she just wishes it was a little more original. She doesn't want us to always be the cause of their fun," I explained.

"I see where that could be a problem. But it's no one's fault. It's not like any of us chose what we could do. Sure he shouldn't have to be 'punished' for it, but we shouldn't have to apologize for it. If I were him, I wouldn't even be complaining. If it's as strong as he says it is, I would think he would be happy. It's like Vampire Viagra. It's about time they came out with that stuff."

"Some of us aren't so fond of artificial enhancements, though," I joked.

We walked into the classroom. The entire class was talking in hushed mumbles. I was about to start dipping into their minds when I heard some of the boys start chuckling.

"Her brother's gonna kill you, dude."

"It's none of her brother's business, it's up to her."

"He's gonna beat the living shit out of you, man!"

"Shhh, here she comes."

A kid who I recognized as Andrew, Bella's creative movement partner slowly approached the front of the room as Bella and I took our seats. He paced around for a few seconds before finally taking a deep breath and started his speech. My "shock" that was to be expected from the class was removed when I heard what he was going to say. Bella realized what was going on, too, as she saw me tense beside her.

"Bella. I'm not exactly good at speech making, so I'm just going to say…you are by far the most graceful person I know. And every time we have a moment to relax in creative movement, you and your sisters are always finding some new way to goof off. I've been looking for that. Humor. Most girls don't seem to appreciate mine. Whenever I say something that would generally offend another girl, you just shrug it off, like it was nothing." When he stated this, I couldn't help thinking of Jacob. And his rude humor. Bella had shown distaste at that, though, but she never shoved him away just because of it. "Bella, I was hoping you would go to homecoming with me."

The room grew silent. Bella wasn't breathing. She wasn't letting me in her head, either. She looked at me with a confused, deer-in-the-headlights look.

_Don't do it, don't do it, _I hoped she heard.

"Um...well…I…um…I don't know what to say," she replied. Every passing second I grew more tense. _Don't give yourself a brain hemorrhage, relax. You look like you're going to explode, _she warned. Her warning didn't ease my worries. It actually made them worse. Did I actually believe she would agree to go with this guy? To lead him on? "Um…could I get back to you?" was her final response.

"Um…sure," Andrew allowed. He went back to his seat and the room burst out in chatter again. I turned towards Bella. Suddenly, my expression scared her.


	3. Alice Cullen: The Argument

Alice Cullen

Chapter 3 – The Argument

I wished that what I had seen had been one of the playful fights that they sometimes had. Whenever I would see the two of them jokingly argue it would always remind me of the cake. The stupid human tradition that Edward had always been against.

We always knew that Bella would have more fun with that. She, of course, got to go first, carefully selecting the largest slice of cake on the table.

"This'll be fun," she had said, "I finally get to mess up your face." With that, she had angled the cake perfectly to get half of it in his mouth, and half on his face, like she wanted. She thoroughly enjoyed that. Knowing that he would have to choke it all up later.

"Okay. Now you're gonna get it," he warned. He took the next largest slice and purposely missed her mouth entirely. That was to get back at me, too. For taking her away from him so long to put on the makeup that was now ruined. Neither of them could stop laughing as they wiped each other's faces.

This was not the playful stuff. In fact, this was the worst fight I'd seen them get into. It was even worse than the times that Bella had snuck off to La Push when he would go hunting.

I saw Bella staring at Edward. I couldn't see his face at the moment, but whatever look he was giving her scared her. Finally I saw that he was angry.

Neither of them were breathing.

"Edward calm down," Bella was saying.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't be freaking out?" he asked.

"Edward I haven't said yes, yet," she reminded him.

"You didn't exactly say no, either."

"Would you stop overreacting?!"

"I think I have a pretty damn good reason to overreact!" he exclaimed, inconspicuously rubbing the third finger of his left hand, gesturing to where his wedding band should have been.

"Look, let me explain when we get home," Bella suggested.

"No, you're going to explain now, before I 'overreact' any more," he demanded, implying the silent conversation by tapping his head, then covering by pretending to scratch it. Bella was silent for a moment before calmly standing up and slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"No, Edward. I'm not going to explain anything until you get your head out of your ass," she quietly stated, and began to storm out of the room. Edward was faster.

"Excuse me? I'm not the one who almost just threw six years away!"

"I'm flattered, really, I am; that you would think that I would be so stupid as to do something that would ruin anything that anyone has worked for. Nice, Edward. I'm glad you see me that way," she replied, and bumped him aside, leaving the room. Edward followed, stepping in front of her and stopping her once more.

"Where are you going?" he wondered.

"Alice probably saw this coming. Jasper's skipping today, so she'll be more than happy to walk home with me. Please, Edward. I don't want to fight with you. Don't come with me. I need you to calm down so that when we do discuss anything, we can do it rationally. Emmett and Rose are playing hookie, too, so I was hoping maybe Emmett and I could throw a football around to calm myself down. Then Rose and I could chat about how we cope with it when our husbands piss us off. I'll be doing more of the listening because she and Emmett fight more than we do, and she likes to talk about herself anyways. I'll see you at home, hopefully in a more relaxed manner." With that she turned and walked toward the exit. Edward let her go. He may have been mad at her, but he still didn't want to lose her. He held on to any hope of keeping her by doing what she wanted him to. He turned and sulked back to class.

I, of course, was waiting for her outside.

"Can we not talk about it?" she hoped.

"Now, Bella, if you don't get it out of your system you're just going to take it out on Edward later. That's not what either of you need at this point in time. Now, I already know your answer, but I'm going to ask you so that you can think this through. Why are you mad at him?" I asked.

"Because he's an over-reactive, untrusting, presuming, over-protective –"

"Okay, let's change points of view, here. Why do you think Edward would be mad at you?" I questioned.

"I don't know. First of all he was already pissed because some guy decided to try and ask _his _wife to homecoming. Then I didn't give him an exact no," Bella explained. "I don't understand why I'm panning this all out to you, you saw the whole thing."

I dodged the question. "Can you think of another time when you didn't give an exact answer and he freaked out a wee bit?" Bella thought for a while.

"Well, when we first got back from Italy he asked me if after all he'd put me through did I still love him. I asked him 'what kind of idiotic question is that.' His voice was shaky when he demanded that I just answer the question," she explained.

"Do you see any similarities between these two situations?" I lead. Bella was silent. I knew that she understood, but just to drill it into her head, I continued. "Every time there's even the slightest chance that he might lose you he tends to get a little sensitive. After Italy, he was afraid that you had moved on; that you no longer needed him when he so desperately needed you. Today he was scared that, even though you two are bound together in every way under the sun, someone had managed to compete with him. He complained about stuff like this all the time while you were with Jacob, especially the night of the bonfire. You were gone through most of the night, and he felt really guilty for suspecting anything, but there was one point in the night where he thought there was no bonfire, that nothing special was happening with the Quileutes, just between you and Jacob. He especially freaked out when you went to see Jacob when he was all gauzed up and that crap, because you felt a lot stronger for him then. When you cried yourself to sleep he got so scared that you were going to leave him, and live a human life with Jacob." Though she already knew it was true, Bella let that sink in.

"He still doesn't have to overreact like that. It makes me feel like I did something completely wrong. I haven't thrown anything away…yet."

"I've said it once and I'll say it again. Edward's a little prone to overreaction. Jasper has a little weakness; Edward forces us all to leave and goes into this depressive 'no hunting for a gazillion weeks' thing. You jump off a cliff; he tries to commit suicide, even though you told him not to if anything happened to you. You attempt to hang out with a werewolf; he disables your car. You successfully hang out with a werewolf; he cancels a hunting trip just to wait for your irresistible blood at your house. My brother's a nut job, I'll admit it. But he's your husband, and if you notice, every time he overreacts, it's because he's afraid to lose you, whether it be by you dying, or whether he has a little competition. The douche just needs to open his eyes and realize that there _is _no competition. You finally accepted that. Sure it took until you were a vampire and beautiful to your own standards, but you did it. Now he just needs to accept that you've damned yourself to eternity just for him and that's more than proof enough that you're not going anywhere. Not to mention all the other stuff that you've done, like accepting his proposal despite your disbelief in really young marriages, you FINALLY let him buy you a car, you took him back after eight months of complete hell. Just give him time and he'll notice that there's nothing for him to worry about."

By this time we were at the house. Bella was still rather angry, so I had to calm her down before we got inside.

"Look, I'll have Jasper calm you down for a few minutes when we get in there. Rose and Emmett want to tell us something. That's why Jasper was skipping today. Rose asked him to in order to calm Carlisle and Esme down long enough for them to hear what they had to say. Then we'll worry about you and Edward, 'kay?" Bella shrugged and stepped inside.

The change in Bella's mood was detectable the instant she walked through the door. Of course I had called Jasper and told him that Bella would need a little bit of comforting. I escorted her into the living room where Emmett and Rosalie were sitting on the couch, waiting for us.

Rose stood up and hugged Bella tightly for a moment.

"He'll come around," was all that she said about it. I shot Jasper a dirty look.

"I thought they should know. I know that I take offense if someone is depressed around me. I always feel like the guilty one. This way, less people are disappointed and I don't have to feel the confusion," he explained.

"Well, I was told that you guys have some news for us, or, well, me I should say?" Bella inquired.

A huge grin spread on Rosalie's face.


	4. Rosalie Hale: The Announcement

Rosalie Hale

Chapter 4 – The Announcement

I couldn't help smiling. Bella must have thought I was possessed or something. I just couldn't help but be excited for her reaction. I knew Bella would be more excited than anyone else. She knew how much I wanted this.

I hoped she wasn't reading my mind. I didn't think she was, that wouldn't be like her to dip into our minds, but she did hate surprises. It sucked enough that we couldn't surprise Alice.

"Sit, sit, sit!" I exclaimed excitedly. This I did for two reasons. A) I really _was _ecstatic. B) A change in mood would do Bella some good.

"Okay, Rosalie. What is it?" Bella wondered, still slightly frustrated.

"Remember when the guys were on that hunting trip before you and Edward were even engaged, and I came in and talked to you?" I questioned. It was a long shot. Bella was so set on her present life that her human memories were already fading. Her clearest memories always included Edward.

"Slightly," she replied. "You had tried to talk me out of joining you guys…well at least when it came to being a vampire.

"Well remember my reasons why I thought you shouldn't leave humanity?"

"Not exactly," was her response. I smiled. It had been a long shot.

"Okay, let's try more recently…um…how about right before Edward bit you? I told you that I had been wrong. That I had been trying to keep you human so that you could have what _I _wanted for you?"

"Yeah…" she answered, still slightly confused.

"What I wanted for you was what I had wanted for myself. Do you remember what it was?

"Sort of. Things about kids with dimples, and that that was why you had originally saved Emmett."

Her sketchy memory was enough. She had still remembered what I wanted her to. I looked at Emmett. He winked, implying that I should continue. I had always wanted this more than he did. He had always wanted it to make me happier, to give me something that he otherwise couldn't.

"Bella, we're adopting a child," I announced. "We don't know if we're adopting a boy or a girl, but we are definitely adopting."

"Really? I'm so happy for you! Oh my goodness! When did you decide this?" You could always count on either Bella or myself to make some sort of dramatic scene.

"We've been discussing it for a long time, even years before you came along. We made Alice keep it a secret once she caught out plans, and the three of us had to keep our thoughts quiet round Edward. It's been easier to keep it from him for the past six years, now that he's always thinking about you and not caring what the rest of us were thinking." Alice caught on to the slip and winked. Reminding Bella that Edward always thought about her might lighten her mood.

"How is all of this going to work? I'm sure you've thought of everything after all that time," she inquired.

"Yes we have, and we determined that we would actually be the best family for a child, and not just Emmett and myself, but all of us. We thought about everyone's strong points." After saying this I finally let Emmett get a word in.

"Esme's always had that motherly affection. We could continue school, to not look suspicious, and Esme wouldn't have any objections to taking care of them. Carlisle's the best and fastest doctor on the planet, so anything that goes wrong, he can take care of. He's also the wisest of all of us. Alice'll be able to keep them in line by telling us when they're planning something dumb. She's also cheerful and can definitely keep us with them. Edward would be able to understand how they think, making it easier to relate and look at everything from their perspective in arguments. Of course, you can do that, too, but you prefer not to. _You _would be best at helping them make decisions. You were the first of us to really choose this life, and you've made a lot of sacrifices. You may forget some of you biggest decisions eventually, but the experience'll still be there. Jasper will be able to keep them calm through their hard times, especially when we finally decide to tell them what we are. If it's a girl, Rosalie will definitely be the one to help with the girlie things like hair and makeup. Alice'll probably have fun with that, too. It it's a boy, she'll be able to give him lots of expert girl advice. No matter what gender, I'll be there to help kick anyone's ass who tries to hurt them. If it's a boy, I'll be the best damn sports coach on the planet, and if it's a girl, she's gonna be _really _trained in self defense."

I watched Bella think this over. I could see her eye everyone in the room, thinking of what he had just said about each of them. While she did this, I finished explaining our flawless plan.

"They'll never have to worry about not having enough money. Only needing food for them and no one else, our living expenses shouldn't increase that much. We wouldn't have to worry about medical bills because of Carlisle. They'll never have to worry about anything happening to any of us. Not to mention that there'll always be someone home to listen to their concerns, or baby-sit while they're still young. Eventually, we'll tell them what we are, and they'd be able to choose to follow or not.

Finally, Bella's thinking face dissolved, revealing a fairly happy expression.

"Wow, you have really taken everything – and everyone for that matter – into consideration. This'll be exciting for all of us, especially Esme. You guys deserve this," she added, hugging Emmett and I both. "It's time you finally got your happy ending. Everyone else did." She suddenly stopped.

Damn it. Bella could almost be retarded at times. Especially when she would accidentally remind herself of her troubles. She began to storm out of the room, for once, Jasper's calm not effecting her.

"Where are you going?" Emmett asked, seriously concerned. I knew this would add to the characteristics that would make up a great father.

"I'm going upstairs, grabbing my Washington driver's license (the one that I _don't _share the name of the one I'm currently angry with), taking my little Audi, and venting," she replied within two seconds she was out the front door.

The clock chimed two o'clock. We would be in for it once Edward showed up.


	5. Edward Cullen: Worries

Edward Cullen

Chapter 5 – Worries

I sat on the edge of the curb, going through the checklist once more. Rosalie and Jasper had finally gotten their licenses, but both of them were skipping today. Emmett was ditching as well. I had walked to school with Bella and Alice, but both of them left after the fight.

I knew I wasn't forgetting anyone. My memory never ceased. I had no one to walk or ride with.

There had been only twice that I had ever felt so alone. Once, when I left Carlisle to live a murderous life. I had been welcomed back with open arms. Then, when I left Bella, to shove myself into isolation and misery. Even then, after I nearly killed us both, and Alice as well, and _finally _convinced Bella that I was no longer just the center of her hallucinations, but actually there, she had forgiven me as well.

This was different. _She _had been the one to walk out on _me_. I had fucked up to the point of no return. For once, I had reason to believe that the one that I had let down would no longer love me. I had always feared this day.

I didn't want to go home. I wanted to see Bella definitely. But what would pain me more? Seeing her disappointed again, then blaming myself for her misery, when I knew she hated me doing that? Or rather not seeing her, avoiding her, though that would only increase the guilt that _she _might feel.

I had thought these double-edged swords would have ceased. How could Bella and I love each other so much, and still have so many problems? We had forever. The odds of all of our problems occurring now should be next to nothing. Yet here I was, alone on the sidewalk.

I would have recognized the soft hum anywhere. I looked up, and sure enough, Carlisle's car came up to greet me. The dark window rolled down and Emmett looked out at me.

"Hop in, bro," he called. His mood was mixed, but his thoughts were even more scrambled, which didn't help me much.

I was in no mood to protest, so I sulked into the front seat.

"How bad is it?" I asked him.

"I don't know. Bella took the news rather well," he replied. He was trying to distract me, but his plan backfired and blew his surprise.

Instantly, years of hiding thoughts were blown down and I saw their final decision. I must say I was rather disappointed. Nearly a decade of Rosalie's graphic mental notes, Alice's translations and reciting, and listening to Emmett singing 70s disco tunes in his head, and all for a kid. I was disappointed, and still not side-tracked.

"I'm happy for you, really," I stated, though my tone contradicted my words. His smile vanished as he realized his secret had been spoiled. "But you know what I meant," I added. The disco started again. "That bad, huh?"

"Now, now, don't get all grumpy. After all, you never tell me what Rose is thinking after we get in a fight." Damn it. Why did everything wait until now to bite me in the ass? "Besides, you and Bella always work things out."

That's when I saw the surest sign that I had failed. At everything. I was such a failure that she had never given me that chance to tell her how sorry she was, not even in words, because she knew I would fail at that, too. Again. Because that's what I was. A failure. I failed at life.

The Audi was gone.

This was the closest I had ever been to wasted, and definitely the loneliest I had ever felt. No one at all wanted to approach me. I was doing this for the same reason that most humans got drunk. Because I had been an idiotic asshole.

I had never understood why people drank when they were depressed, since alcohol was a depressant. Now I got it. They were purposely making it worse. I now followed them. I think I had gone what most teenagers would call emo.

Only my attempt at making myself suffer was far more successful than any human could have dreamed. The toilet in the bathroom of the room that Bella and I usually inhabited _together _finally made itself useful. I had drunk enough to kill five people. It was far more disgusting on the way back up than it had been to drink it in the first place. Next to the mat on the floor was an empty bag of what had been fast food. Regular human food was one thing. Not even the most vicious mass murderer deserved the horror that is fast food.

Still, none of this added up the pain that I felt in losing Bella. I wondered how far she would go. Could go. Bella could be anywhere by now.

That was when I realized that until now, I hadn't failed at _everything_. Until now I had never once let her go. Even during those excruciating eight months, my mind never once wandered from Bella's pained expression, the last look that I had seen on her face before I had left her. It was the one thing I never ceased to do. I couldn't let that change now.

I grabbed the keys to my Volvo and left. My family had watched me. All but Alice shocked. I raced to find her. We had never been apart long enough to test how far our communication could reach, but I silently called out anyway. I called without response. Or so I thought.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. My foot slammed on the brakes when I saw the caller ID. It took me a moment to gather myself and answer.

"Bella?" Silence. Then a click. SHIT! FUCK! WHY? WHY WAS I SUCH A FUCKING SHIT FACE? It took all of one second for me to redial. I didn't even wait for her to speak when she picked up.

"I'm a jerk, I messed up, you had every right to leave. I was jealous. _Again_. And I shouldn't have overreacted like that. You can go to homecoming with the creep, I don't care. Just don't freak me out like this," I blurted out. Still nothing. "Bella? What's wrong? Say something…" My own voice was the one that came into my head. _You're what's wrong you douche. It's all because you're such a jerk face_.

"Where are you?" she wondered through tearless sobs.

"I could ask you the same question," I reminded her.

"_I _came back. I was telling the truth about throwing a football around with Emmett. I pulled up and your car was gone," she explained.

"Sounds like déjà vu."

"I just want to know that I haven't really screwed things up."

"No, don't even think that. I thought I had shoved you away for the last time, the last time meaning you weren't coming back. You don't know what I've done to myself for it, so please, relax, before I feel even worse," I requested.

"I…kind of saw what you did. You left a lot of evidence around the house. It actually took a while to clean. Even with Alice helping," she informed.

"It wasn't fair for you to see that," I quoted her words from nearly four and a half years ago.

"Just please come home," she cried, sounding almost panicked.

"Calm down, love. I'm at the front door right now," I assured her. Within two seconds she was crushed to me, her face buried in my chest as I stroked her hair and breathed in her scent. She started in explain herself before I interrupted her with my lips, pressing urgently against hers. "Explain later. For now, just forgive me."


	6. Emmett Cullen: Spirit Week

Emmett Cullen

Chapter 6 – Spirit Week

It was Thursday and, I still hadn't seen much come from spirit week. Jasper and I had managed to get a few people going on it, however.

Carlisle had finally allowed us to participate in sports. Just as long as we didn't give anything away, and thanks to us, we had been undefeated. You would think the school would be grateful, considering last year they won absolutely no games. But no. Spirit week was pretty much dead.

Until Bella pulled me aside.

Edward and Bella, had, like I predicted, found some way to work things out. But lately Bella had been looking at me oddly. She was definitely considering something. What that was I had no idea.

We walked around campus for a few moments in silence. My guess was that Bella was seeing what possible reactions I may have to whatever she was going to say. Finally, she took a deep breath, and I halted.

"I know this totally goes against your whole plan of how you were going to 'ask' Rosalie out, but Edward and I need you to do us a HUGE favor," she started. I knew where it would end, too.

"No, no, no."

"PLEASE, Emmett. Just ask her to homecoming. You can use your story for…I don't know when you 'get her a promise ring' or something. Things are bound to get awkward when I tell Andrew that I'm not going to homecoming with him. Edward doesn't wouldn't mind if I did, but I do. I've explored every possible way to say no and all of them include him inquiring why. I don't have any excuses that wouldn't make it odd for Edward and I to just start dating," she pleaded.

"I'll make you a bet. At lunch we'll arm wrestle for it. You win, I ask Rosalie to homecoming, and beat the living crap out of this Andrew guy. Then he won't even ask you for an answer. I win, you have to go to homecoming with Andrew and eat EVERYTHING that our entire family gets for lunch, and I promise I won't tell them ahead of time so that they won't go overboard." I held my hand out to make the compromise.

"Deal."

We both had a lot riding on this. I had the best story in the world of how I would declare my never ending love for Rosalie and I wanted to use it bad. Besides, I was getting a little bored of school dances. I really didn't want to go.

Despite what he may have said, Edward really didn't want Bella going to the dance unless it was alone or with him. Bella even knew that. Besides that she didn't even like the guy. Here, her and Edward could start dating sooner (granted Alice and Jasper jumped on things), and she would get the living shit beat out of the guy who made her and Edward suffer their worst fight in……….well, ever.

Sure, we had all made friends, like Bella had requested, but we still sat alone. Like there would be room at our table even if we hadn't. Bella and I were the first to the table. Only Alice didn't seem suspicious, but that was to be expected.

"Bella and I have a little duel. We're having a little arm wrestling match. Her wager, like always, is food. Mine is………something that everyone will find out later, anyway. So, Bella? Do you feel lucky? Because if I remember right – and you know I do – our last little competition was around three months ago, and you were struggling. You might have waned even more now."

"I'll take my chances," was her response.

"I'll referee," Jasper volunteered. "Ready…Set…GO!"

Bella was still strong. I noticed she was definitely weaker than last time, but we stayed even for a good five minutes. Despite the length of the competition, our siblings kept on cheering. Alice and Edward were rooting for Bella, Jasper and Rosalie for me.

Our arm wrestling match had somehow turned into a staring contest. We had both taken out eyes off of our interlocked hand and now looked at each other in a never-ending stare-down.

It was with this that it ended. The staring contest had turned deadly for me. I had been paying too much attention to intimidating Bella that I had never noticed my arm moving too far to my right. The next thing I knew, Jasper pounded on the table.

"And Bella remains the undefeated champ!"

I decided to do the least painful part first. I guessed I might have done this even if Bella hadn't won the match, I must have just thrown it in to get her to accept the challenge. That had been a mistake, considering I had lost.

Andrew was just leaning against his locker, talking to the guy's tennis team captain, Michael Grayheart. He didn't seem to notice my approach. Maybe our species should be renamed something that has to do with bloodsucking ninjas.

As I got closer I realized that, yes, I would have done this anyway. Every footstep that brought me closer to this arrogant bastard made me hate him even more. Ever since Bella and Edward got married I had never seen them fight the way Alice described they had. And Bella hadn't even thrown a football that hard when she was a newborn. This man was behind the chaos.

I had been fairly hurt when Bella had asked Carlisle to do the sermon. I was even online getting my license when I overheard her talking to him. I was a little disappointed until I heard something like "I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face." That helped me ease up a little bit.

So Edward made me his best man. It would have been Jasper anyway, had I been the one at that stinking little podium thing declaring them vampire and wife. _He _had taken to being the clown that day.

When he was about to recite his vows, he had dropped her right hand and held up her left for all to see.

"It took me ages to get that ring on her finger and now it's off. This royally sucks," were the first words out of his mouth. That was when Bella broke her "no laughing at the alter" promise she had made to herself. So much for keeping a straight face, anyway.

Edward turned back to Bella. After holding their gaze for about two seconds, they had both broken out into hysterics.

"Wow, this'll be quite a way to remember today," Edward had commented.

Throughout both of their vows, the couple had snickering fits. I even thought I saw Carlisle roll his eyes and suppress a chuckle. The guests couldn't help laughing, either.

Each inch that decreased between me and Andrew despise the contrast between that day and yesterday. I wanted to smash his face into the floor, but I had to keep all damage minimal, especially if I wanted to play in tomorrow's game.

"So," I started, shocking the kid, "I heard you tried to ask my sister to homecoming?"

"Tried? I succeeded in asking, but have still failed in getting an answer. I'm sure maybe she sent you to pass on the message?" he wondered.

"Oh she sent me to pass on a message, all right, I just don't think you'll like it that much." He looked at me for an instant before he suddenly realized my size, and the pullback of my fist.

For once I loved human reflexes. Whenever I was driving, there would be some idiot with poor ones. Those were the kinds I hated. But now, the lack of speed was on my side. He didn't have a chance.

I first punched him in the face most likely breaking his nose, then kneeing him in the gut. I left him curled in a ball on the floor, Michael laughing, saying something like "Sorry, man. I told you to look out for the wrong brother."


	7. Jasper Hale: Family Protection

Jasper Hale

Chapter 7 – Family Protection

Alice, Rosalie and I walked into the quiet library. It was rather ill-supplied. I had read every book, novel and nonfiction. Even the encyclopedias were familiar to me.

Once I had been half tempted to write a book on my own personal history. Of course I would write it off as a novel, instead of _The Autobiography of Jasper Hale_. Who would believe that the Vampire Wars of the South actually occurred?

Rosalie stayed near the front of the library. Alice and I drifted into separate back corners. I parked myself in a chair with a book about Hitler. His war tactics always seemed to amaze me, no matter how many times I had read about them.

Alice plopped herself at a computer. She logged into a website that I recognized as one set up to help us check our grades online and see homework assignments that we missed. She didn't need it, obviously, with how many times she's been to high school. There could be no way that she didn't have a 4.0. But it was good for the charade.

Every once in a while, the both of us would look up from our work to peak at each other. It was always pretty synchronized. She could tell exactly when I was going to look at her and looked up then, to be sure to catch my eye. Her gaze reminded me of right after Bella and Edward's wedding.

The whole thing had been beautiful, and of course, my Alice had created it. It was even more beautiful than all of Rosalie and Emmett's combined, but that was probably because Rosalie was too pigheaded to let Alice do any of their weddings. Red and white bouquets were placed in gorgeous baige clay pots everywhere. Emmett had joked that it symbolized both of their virginities…and then Bella's blood. I had elbowed him in the gut for that. Freesias were hung from every available hanging point. Emmett couldn't find a silly meaning for that. There was only the obvious, which was that Bella smelled like a big, giant, breathing freesia bush.

Of course Edward couldn't help himself when Carlisle declared the deed done. He had scooped Bella off of her feet. First came a squeal of protest, but she couldn't stay disappointed forever. Within a millisecond, a smile had grown. She probably would have tripped back up the isle if he hadn't, and she always had that smile at Edward's touch.

I saw that look in Alice's eyes. I knew that look too well. It was the look she had always given me when she had an idea.

Once Bella and Edward had cleared the isle, it was our turn. I held out my elbow, and she daintily draped her hand over it. I looked and her in suspicion.

"What are you thinking?" I had wondered.

"I'm just a little inspired," she replied. This couldn't be good.

"Inspired to do what?" I interrogated.

"Think about it Jasper. We've never had a wedding. I'm ecstatic to do anyone's wedding, but I've always wondered what it would feel like when _I _was the one getting wedding day jitters. I've always wondered what it would feel like walking down the isle, seeing you at the other end. For years, I've tried to imagine your face, exactly what kind of expression you'd have. I've tried seeing it, but because you haven't agreed to anything, yet, I get nothing."

I looked into her eyes for a long moment as we walked on. Her golden eyes held longing and wonder. I'd never seen her want anything more than she wanted this. If my heart had still been beating, it would have stopped right there. I wondered if this had ever hurt her, if for one single moment I had ever made her doubt me. I never felt anything wrong in her emotions, but I had overheard Bella once say that sometimes, you're so convinced with the lies, that you won't believe the truth…

"Is this what you truly want?" I had asked.

"More than anything," she agreed, as predicted.

"Than just rest assured that I'll greatly consider it," I told her. "I promise, though, that even if it's not as soon as you might like, I will give this to you sometime in the next century," I promised. We turned the corner and I wrapped my arm around her waist, hugging her closer. "Besides, it's not like we don't have forever."

Now as I looked into her eyes, forever didn't seem like soon enough.

Suddenly her expression changed. I ran to her side, probably a little faster than I should have. I bent down so I could reach my eyes to her.

"What did you see?" I inquired.

"We need to get to Rosalie…" was all she said. "We don't have to hurry, though. We have a little bit of time."

I heard the conversation as if I had been right next to Rosalie. I would have been able to pick it up anyway, but the library was quiet enough that nearly anyone could have eavesdropped.

"So, Rosalie. You uh…you don't approve of your brother's violence do you?" someone asked. Instantly I realized this must have been Andrew. Rosalie laughed.

"Which brother? All three of them are fist throwing lunatics."

"The big one. Emmett, I think," he replied, guessing correctly.

"Sure. Emmett's big, burly and muscular, but he can control his temper. Way better than Edward can. And on the subject of Edward and his temper, I'm pretty sure you should still consider yourself in danger around him. Last time he lost his temper this badly, he was behind the wheel of a really fast car, just about ready to commit vehicular homicide to four crack heads in Port Angeles. He probably would've done it, too, had Bella not been there. But Emmett's temper, he only loses it for justifiable reasons." With that, Rosalie turned back to her "reading."

"If you could describe Bella in one word, what would it be?" he wondered.

"Well, if you had asked me four years ago, I would have called her brainless. She was so ready to throw so much away for the slightest benefit. But now that I see how much it's done for, I kind of think of her as an angel. Our family had gotten a little boring. It had been the seven of us for quite a while and it was nice for that to change. She's also changed so much about Alice and Edward, sometimes even myself, too." This shocked me a little. I knew that Rosalie didn't really detest Bella anymore, but to hear her actually singing Bella's praise. That was unheard of. "How would you describe her?" That was when Alice nudged me. I had to be prepared. It took Andrew a moment to answer, though his eyes clearly explained that his mind had already been made.

"Whore."

She would have killed him. She really would have. Had we not been there, she would have leapt across the table and strangled him with her two bare hands. Or so Alice told me. I'd seen her do it before, too. She was generally really aggressive. After all she had murdered her human fiancée and a bunch of his buddies without spilling a drop of blood. Whenever we went hunting she tended to strangle her prey before finally feeding. It was an interesting order of operations, but it suited her then, and it would have now.

We could all see where she was coming from, however. We all definitely wanted to hurt him.

"I don't see why you didn't just let me kill him," Rosalie vented.

"Rose, you could have exposed us. And probably been sent to jail," Emmett explained. We were halfway down the stairs to find Bella and Edward. All of us had been thinking towards them about what had been said. We wanted Andrew to see exactly what Rosalie meant about Edward and his temper, but with Bella there to keep him sane.

"C'mon, we could outrun the fastest cop cars, especially in city traffic."

We rounded the corner and there they were. Bella's arms were crossed over her chest, Edward had a strong arm around her. It really didn't look conspicuous, if you took the time to explain that he was an over protective brother who's comforting his sister who just got called a whore.

"I'm guessing you heard us?" I questioned.

"Oh yeah," they replied unanimously, their faces blank. Edward led Bella forward, toward the jerk that was making our lives more and more hell than just being condemned to a life with no end. I shooed Alice, Emmett and Rose to the side. The only reason I was even coming was in case Bella's calm wasn't enough. There was no need for them to be there. He was just a puny little human. They could have their share later.

We didn't even bother being quiet. Generally we enjoy sneaking up on people, but today it wasn't worth it. Three pairs of stomping footsteps interrupted Andrew from a conversation.

"Holy shit! News definitely travels fast with the infamous Cullens," he noticed.

"Yeah, well we're a family of no secrets," Bella explained.

Edward started forward slowly. Finally his anger got the best of him. He lunged forward quickly. It was a great thing that Bella had reflexes like the rest of us. She threw herself in front of him. Instantly he halted, and after a moment Bella rested her hands on his shoulders.

"Hahahaha. That's funny. She didn't even have to touch you. This is better than I thought," Andrew teased.

Edward broke past Bella, calmly this time.

"You…come with me." He didn't even give Andrew the time to respond. He simply dragged him by the hood of his sweatshirt towards the parking lot.


	8. Edward Cullen: History Lesson

Edward Cullen

Chapter 8 – History Lesson

I drove as hard and as fast as I could. The thoughts that had gone through Jasper's head were understandable. He was concerned that, even with my speed, I would get caught without a license. Luckily for him, I had never emptied my wallet. My Washington license was in there, and still valid.

Andrew had been thinking similar thoughts as we raced across the state.

"Is this even legal?" he wondered.

"That Depends on how you look at it. Now shut up unless you want your face through the windshield," was my response.

"My head's not going anywhere…because I'm wearing my seatbelt unlike you."

"You think I can't put it there myself? Because I will if you don't shut the hell up!" I exclaimed. This guy was getting closer and closer to death if he continued like this.

I had to keep my eyes on the road for once. This reminded me of Port Angeles. When Bella was almost…I couldn't bear to think about it. I'd never had to concentrate so hard on not killing someone except for that once…and multiple werewolf situations.

This shouldn't have bothered me this much. I had heard the thoughts of many high schoolers over the years. It's not like I'd never heard the word "whore" before. It was just that never once, even at Forks, had anyone called my Bella a whore.

"Where are we going?" Andrew asked. I ignored the question, pressing an inquisition of my own.

"How could you say that about her? How could you call her a whore?" I interrogated. "Just because she turned you down? I understand if you would want to call her a little bitch, especially after sending Emmett on you, though he did kind of volunteer…but not a whore."

"Look, I get even, take revenge, whatever you want to call it. I knew she turned me down because you wouldn't want her to go with me. She was looking back and fourth between you and I. I could tell what was going through her mind…" That part made me laugh, "…and that's a pretty shitty reason to turn me down, don't you think. And then when she decided to send your brother on me for _your _issue, I thought of the most offensive thing that a freshman girl could get labeled for," he explained.

"A) You have the situation all wrong. B) If 'whore' is the most offensive term you can come up with, that's sad. Besides what would it matter whether or not I wanted her to go with you?"

"Because you're her brother. It's none of _your _business who she dates. It's her choice," he justified.

"Her happiness is every part of my fucking business. I owe her that much and more." With that, I slammed on the brakes. We were on a deserted country road, so I had no need to pull over. "I think it's time you had a little bit of a Bella history lesson. After about 6 months of her…living with us…" I found it incredibly hard to stick to the charade "…I convinced my family to pass her on to a new home. I felt that she deserved so much more. I still believe that. I had to lie and tell her that none of us wanted her anymore. That hurt her, a lot. Especially since we had grown so close, and my family had made me tell the lie, since it was my decision. Her pain was my fault.

"When I found out what kinds of families she was living with, I was rather disappointed. They were worse than we were. But she seemed happy enough, and I couldn't interfere without pulling the act. She still believed we didn't want her. Then she started doing some stupid things. She was always putting herself in harm's way.

"One time I thought she had killed herself. I felt equal amounts of guilt and sorrow. Of course, as you can tell, she was perfectly fine, but I thought otherwise at the time. I was furious with myself, for causing her suicide, but most of all I was upset that she had never got what she had deserved. I also couldn't imagine a world where Bella's smile wasn't lighting up someone's life. To me, as long as she was happy, I would be. So thinking that her existence had ended, and for the other reasons I mentioned, I considered taking my own life.

"Our sister, Alice, had seen it coming, and told Bella what I was about to do. The whole time I had thought she would hate me if she had learned I had pained her with a lie. But when Alice told her the truth, she risked her own life to end my suicide attempt. That was when I realized that no matter how much we didn't deserve her, she needed us. And I clearly needed her, too.

"It had been eight months at that point. Eight months that she hadn't lived with us. We took her back in, but I couldn't change what I'd done. Now, every day, I have to live with her watching me, expecting me to leave again. Now that she's officially adopted, she's more assured, but only slightly. Every time I catch her doubting me, she seems embarrassed, but I assure her that I deserve it.

"But what's worse is that she had to make many difficult decisions when we adopted her. She had bonded with some members of some of her other foster families, and she knew that we were moving soon. She left half of herself in Forks, and due to some complications, we can't go back and visit. Now every time I look into her eyes, I see that empty space. It's hard to know that the other half of her is probably never going to come back.

"Like I said, most of it was my fault. I've completely abolished one hundred percent happiness, and I have to live with the fact that I did that to her. So you bet it's my damn business. Anyone who comes close to hurting her in _any _way _will _answer to me. And I believe Rosalie told you about my temper. And what Emmett did to you wasn't even half of his strength. And the rest of our family will respond pretty harshly, too. So you might want to watch what you say or do around her. We've come too close to losing her too many times in the past. We're all very protective of each other, especially of Bella," I finished.

My foot found the gas pedal again. Andrew was silent for a moment, devouring all I had told him.

"Where are we going?" he repeated.

"No place of consequence," I simply replied.

"You know you drive like a madman."

"You're not the first to say that," I commented. But he was right. I _was_ driving more recklessly than usual. I had recently acquired a newer Volvo. It was faster. And I was rather angry, which added to the force behind the gas pedal.

"I'm curious," Andrew began. I laughed inside at the question that popped into his mind. "What would _you_ do to me?" It took me a while to recover from my held in chuckles.

"I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."

_What the hell are you doing? Emmett still has to drive you guys home, remember?_ I heard a calming voice ask. This always helped. Especially that night in Port Angeles, when she was in the car with me. Now that Bella was able to with me anywhere, I could calm down. This was also nice because this was the farthest apart we'd ever been since we could share these mental conversations. Her voice still had perfect clarity, still passing an unofficial test.

_I think you'll like it. Just stay out of my head so I can surprise you. I love you._

I heard Bella's quiet laughter and couldn't help but smile.

"What are you grinning at? I thought you were pissed," Andrew observed.

"I was thinking about your question. About what I would do to you.

"And?" he prompted. I pulled over.

"Get out," I ordered. He did, and I followed quickly.

Before he knew it, he was on the ground.

I had knocked he face so hard, his balance failed. I was amazed the force hadn't broken his neck, but also impressed that I had exercised such control that there had been no fracture. He was clutching the side that I had kicked right before he had hit the ground. I jumped in the car before he could even realize what had happened to him. Without a backward glance, I drove back to the school laughing.

_Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? _Still no response from Bella, but she could just be trying to get me to continue my mental celebrations. So I had to try. _Jacob is such a big retarded shit face that I killed him in from of Andrew to show him what I could do_…still nothing. Good. I was free to bask in my glory.

Alice and Bella were walking home together, so I was able to do a little victory dance in the back seat. Andrew probably still didn't even know where he was. I wouldn't be surprised if his picture showed up on the evening news the next day.

Then Jasper tried to make me feel guilty, but my relief was too strong. I only felt a slight twinge until Jasper finally gave in. Then I heard the voice.

_You just passed us. I saw what you were doing. Stop dancing or I'll ask Alice. No dipping necessary._


	9. Bella Cullen: Tennis Practice

Bella Cullen

Chapter 9 – Tennis Practice

I had really begun to wonder what Edward had done when Andrew didn't show up for a few days. I didn't mind that he wasn't there; I was just wondering what kid of trouble Edward might have caused us.

Then I began to dip into the minds of some of his tennis buddies (they wouldn't talk to me upfront for some reason). Most of them had thoughts wondering where he was, too. They weren't worried, though, because supposedly he called his parents saying that he was okay, but he had no idea where he was, so he couldn't get them to pick hum up.

I put two and two together. Edward + Volvo + Mad far away. Andrew wouldn't be coming back for a while. I wouldn't have been surprised if Edward had crossed three state borders. I would actually be impressed if he hadn't.

So of course I laughed when I found out that Andrew eventually discovered that he was in Montana. The next time I saw Edward, I couldn't help but embrace him. I wanted to kiss him, but we were in a very populated part of the school. I knew I should have been disappointed in his overreaction, but I found it too funny for me to be mad, and as soon as he realized what was so funny, I found him laughing with me.

Andrew was, however at school three days after my realization. Thankfully that gave Alice enough time to make sure that neither her, myself, nor Rosalie would be stuck with him as a partner for Creative Movement.

Andrew was not making our lives easier. He wasn't exactly overreacting, though. I think I would have reacted the same way if I had been dropped off in Montana and _couldn't _run home in a matter of hours. But it wasn't that smart of him to act like that after everything Emmett and Edward had done to him.

It might have been a mistake for Edward to have told Andrew my "story." Every time Andrew passed him, he would say something taunting. Something about my happiness, or my eyes, or whether or not he was going to leave again.

I didn't know who it bothered more; me, Edward, or Jasper. It bugged me because it reminded me of Jacob. I knew that's what Edward had meant by my other "families" that I had bonded with. It bugged Edward because it made him feel guilty, which made me more upset because I hated when he wallowed. It bothered Jasper because he felt all of us suffering…and he already had burning hatred for Andrew to begin with.

It was getting ridiculous. I had even told him to leave Edward alone. I had explained that I hadn't turned him down simply because "Edward wouldn't want me to go with him." I drew out the conclusion that I knew he would ask why…which was the truth, anything I had come up with to say ended in him puling me aside. And that I really didn't want to honestly answer the question.

I guess this was his new way of "getting back." He knew that I wanted him to leave Edward alone, so it was his way of annoying us both. He was pushing his luck.

"I really just want to stick his head through a cinderblock," Emmett commented. I was rather partial to that idea.

Homecoming had come and gone. Rosalie was, of course, ecstatic that she and Emmett could come out of the shadows. And despite the fact I was the one who had altered his plans as to how he and Rosalie would "spark their relationship," he had still been taking my side.

"I thought we agreed that it was my turn to beat the shit out of this guy," Alice complained. She really liked the idea of breaking the "itty-bitty frail little dancer" stereotype by slamming something into Andrew.

Jasper remained calm. He was selfish, however, and didn't share his relaxation. I understood the reason for his silence, however. Jasper starting a fight with Andrew would most likely lead to blood, and with Jasper that would not end well.

Edward, of course, had had his fun. That was the only light of this situation: The humor of Andrew being randomly placed in Montana.

"Look, who's the center of this? When do I get to kill the douche bucket?" I wondered. Edward laughed.

That's how it started. All of a sudden we were planning. The contest. It wasn't fair to arm wrestle. Emmett was disqualified since he had already given Andrew a beating, and I would beat everyone else. We finally decided on some sort of race. It was fair, considering Edward was disqualified, as well. The details were sketchy, but we knew we were going to race.

Andrew was growing onto us, though. Somehow he knew we were planning something. His thoughts became very imaginative of what we would do to him. His ideas ranged from Edward smashing his head through a window to Emmett throwing him across the football field. He still didn't know what he could expect from me or Rosalie or Alice for that matter. There was no way that we were going to let Jasper anywhere near him.

"You know, if we _do _end up accidentally killing him, we should play tennis with his head or something," Alice suggested playfully. "His dearest wish. To be involved in a tennis game, even in death," she continued.

"I've never been one for tennis, but that might be fun." That was Rosalie's first sign of interest in this violence.

We joked like that the rest of lunch, Andrew eyeing us suspiciously.

I should have known who was going to win

We had finally decided on racing around the state borders, though we attempted to avoid interstates as much as possible. Even when we couldn't, it's not like any human would have fast enough reflexes to catch us in the act.

The fact that she even started the race should have tipped me off.

Of course if Alice hadn't seen herself winning, what would have been the purpose of even participating, right? I was amazed I hadn't seen it. I had chosen to take part in the race. Why couldn't I see the result of my decision?

Alice took a long, careful few weeks to decide her course of action. She didn't want to draw attention to us like Edward and Emmett had, but she definitely wanted her voice to be heard. She also made Edward keep whatever her heard a secret, and of course, as usual, I stayed out of both of their heads.

So by the time Alice had planned her attack, it was nearly the end of November. Jasper was getting involved with the new basketball season, and Emmett had pretty much been drafted into wrestling after the coaches had seen some of his football tackles. Jasper had "asked" Alice out, and the plan for Edward and was that he would ask me to the winter tolo. I would agree, but "fall sick" so that we wouldn't have to go. Despite my new grace and Creative Movement, I still didn't like school dances. Edward didn't like that plan, though. He didn't like anything that implied me "skipping out" or getting "cold feet" as "falling sick" would do.

She finally came up with a plan. It was very well thought through. It didn't make us look like we were unnaturally strong. Alice could have her fun and – the number one reason why I liked it – it included me Rosalie and Jasper.

Jasper's part was small, but he was proud to take part in the plan at all. He examined the outer brick wall. The camera, mounted on the roof might have been a problem, but Jasper quickly and stealthily adjusted it the slightest bit. There was now a blind spot.

Tennis still had a few championship games left.

We waited until after tennis practice. Andrew looked at us carefully when he saw us huddled in the blind spot. His must not have seen anything wrong, since he proceeded to walk into the locker room.

"Five, four, three, two, one," and he was there. Alice had been quick enough. The only thing the camera would have caught was Andrew suddenly disappearing. Alice wouldn't be seen.

"How the hell?" he blurted out.

"Don't ask," Alice strongly suggested.

"I'm asking," he replied stubbornly. "How did you run that fast?"

"Emmett," Rosalie lied. "He does more than just play, he coaches. Well that's what he wants to do, so he's practiced on us."

"I believe that Edward told you a little fact a bout our family. You mess with one of us, all of us fight back. And you've messed with two," I reminded him.

Alice pulled Andrew's tennis racket out of his sport's bag.

"You know, I've never really learned the rules of tennis," she fibbed.

"It's not that complicated. You hit a ball back and fourth." That was the cue. Alice had seen this part of the conversation. Rosalie and I each grabbed one of his arms.

"I used to play badminton. Is the swinging style the same?" she wondered.

I even knew it wasn't, and I wasn't even sport smart, even living with Emmett. I had been forced to play badminton at Forks in P.E. Where in tennis, most strokes were from the waist level, pretty much all of the strokes in badminton were overhead.

"Like this?" And with that, the racket ended up at his neck, his head stuck through the wiring. "Next time, where the racket is now, there'll be a brick wall," she warned.

"And I _have _done things that require the strength it takes to throw a person through a brick wall," Rosalie admitted, truthfully, remembering her human fiancée and his little buddies.


	10. Rosalie Hale: Evaluations

Rosalie Hale

Chapter 10 – Evaluations

It was getting rather annoying. Not very many calls were getting through. Not even after we took Carlisle advice in settling for being foster parents. They hadn't even scheduled interviewed or checked out the living environment. I had a burning hunch that it was because of Emmett and my "age."

I finally asked Carlisle and Esme. It was clear that this was getting nowhere. I asked him if he would fill out the paperwork and the two would be the legal foster parents, and Emmett and I would do most of the looking after it. Even in a city this big, people knew and respected Carlisle, and they all adored Esme. They might bother to actually read the paperwork past the age space.

Sure enough, interviews with Carlisle and Esme were scheduled, and Alice could see that they had decided to check out the living arrangements unexpectedly. Fortunately enough, thanks to Alice's warning, we were prepared, so we didn't have to pull Bella and Edward off of each other into some decent brother-sister formation every time the doorbell rang.

When there was only ten minutes left before the inspectors would show up, I began to panic. Alice saw everything going fine, but she's said so many times that the future can change. And in a game with this many players, too many things could change. I was so impatient for everyone to move to their places that it felt like they were all moving at a human speed. They probably were, but that was most likely because they had a much better perception of time than I did. They knew that there was no hurry. I couldn't tell the difference.

So when they came, the house looked nothing like it normally would. Not like the normal environment would be bad, it would just look a little awkward. Everyone was downstairs, for once. And there was actually food properly stored in the pantry and fridge. The authenticity came from Edward's knowledge of food storage from watching the food network (he had gone through a phase of trying to cook for Bella), and Carlisle's knowledge of what improper storage caused food poisoning.

The only faking we did about the way we interacted was turning down the love just a wee bit. The city _was _however big enough that everyone only knew who we were. Not that four of us were dating (Edward and Bella were still waiting on that). Only our school knew that. And that was only because of Jasper and Emmett's popularity due to helping the football team actually win.

Bella and Edward were still inseparable; they were just in a more reasonable sibling position. Bella was lying on the sofa on her stomach with her feet kicking in the air. Her check was resting on a relaxed fist and she was writing in a notebook. Edward was in the recliner next to her. He had the typical teenage boy look, refusing to use the footrest and instead throwing his legs over the other arm of the chair. He was pretending to read a book (or actually reading it for all I knew. Either way it was at a human pace), his head could easily be turned to speak with Bella if he so chose.

Emmett and Jasper were kick boxing on the latest edition of the wii (unlike Edward, Emmett had finally grown bored and impatient after all these years). The two of them competing was normal enough that there wasn't much adjusting necessary. Alice was sprawled on the floor with a magazine. Jasper and her relationship had always been more subtle than the rest of us, so it was easily manageable for her to hide any more than sisterly emotions for him. I was busy clicking away on the internet, mostly on youtube. Humans were so funny. I was also doubling as Emmett's cheerleader. Like I said: it was normal enough.

The doorbell rang and nobody jumped. Esme was washing the "dirty" dishes, and Carlisle got up to answer the door.

They inspectors, or whatever you would call them (I hadn't paid that much attention since Emmett and I had never gotten this far) looked relaxed after Carlisle re-introduced himself and Esme, and they saw our cooperative positions. It was time for the show to begin.

Edward casually picked a little playful fight with Bella.

"Why do you get the entire couch, anyway?" he inquired.

"If you're so uncomfortable, why don't you actually use the footrest?"

He stealthily leapt from the chair onto Bella in a way that was almost, but not quite, conspicuous. They kept their fighting playful, in no way at all implicit. Finally they "noticed" they were being watched, and Bella kicked Edward off of her. The two of them looked up and smiled innocently.

"This is our first adopted, yet youngest son, and our most recently adopted daughter. They're pretty competitive with each other, as you can tell. But they get along great," Carlisle explained. I chuckled, pretending to laugh at my video. If only these people knew how well they got along.

Edward stood up first, offering his hand to Bella, proving to the men that they could cooperate. Bella took it without hesitation, and, once on her feet, extended her hand to our interrogators.

"Isabella, well, Bella," she introduced, shaking their hands.

"Edward. Please no Ed or Eddie. I've always hated that," Edward announced, gripping their hands as well. "C'mon Bella. Let me show you how to play the piano and have it sound good."

Bella scowled at him.

"Hey, we can't all be Mozart," she replied coldly. She had been catching on well, though, faster than any human could have. But her own resistance kept her from becoming great. She could do so much of what Edward could do now. As much as she loved Edward just for being him, while she had been human, the fact that he was a vampire had always thrilled her. Now that she was just as thrilling, she enjoyed keeping these personal talents separate, like the piano. Especially the piano, because of that one song, that precious lullaby.

"Down there is Alice," Carlisle continued as Bella and Edward walked away. Alice glanced up slightly and waved. "Pretending to beat each other up are Emmett and Jasper," each of the boys raised their hands when their own name was called, never taking their eyes away from the screen. "On the computer there is my oldest daughter, Rosalie," he concluded. I turned my head, smiled, and waved. I sighed deeply before returning to the computer. This was it.

Edward began to play some jazz on the piano. Alice looked up, "surprised" to hear her favorite song, and jumped up to join him and Bella at the piano. Despite trying to kill Emmett through the video game, Jasper set of a comforting wave through the room. I was sure one of the notes on our evaluation would be something like "gives off good calming energy. Literally." I turned off the video off and logged on to myspace. Bella had been encouraging us to be a little bit more social. She had never connected well with people in Phoenix, so being torn away from actual friends left her wanting to make new ones here. So far I was doing well. Seventy six friends within a week of my profile's creation, all whom I'd known from school. There were still more requests when I logged in as well.

"From here you can just call me Mr. Swan, please. Now what kind of siblings would make you turn off your music just to play their own?" All music had stopped at this point. I knew I didn't have to breathe, but I ended up hyperventilating anyway.

"I like hearing Edward play," I managed to gasp.

Living in a big city, we had all grown very much desensitized. None of us had noticed any familiarity with his scent…but this was Charlie. We were now officially and royally fucked. There was no way we could hide anymore. Unless Carlisle acted quickly, we couldn't do anything. Leaving wouldn't help this time. It wasn't a suspicion in this case. He knew us. And being a police chief (or ex-police chief now, I guess) he was probably going to release a nationwide search if he ever pieced together why his daughter, who he had just seen completely unchanged, had never been able to send more than an email or phone call.

"Excuse me, Mr. Swan…" I stood from the computer. I walked to the piano. "Upstairs. All of you. Now. Emmett, Jasper! You, too, come on!"

As soon as we were around the corner, we were all running. Not making a sound, just running. Up both flights of stairs into the third-floor room that we had been planning to turn into a bonus room, especially if this foster thing had worked out. Now it wouldn't.

By the time we were in the room, Bella was glued to Edward's side.

"This is bad," was all she could blurt out.

"Edward? Does he know it's us?" I asked. Why? Seriously, I already knew the answer. After all, she was his daughter.

"Yes. He doesn't recognize you Emmett, Jasper or Esme as much. Charlie really only saw you guys at the wedding and around town here and there. But he knew Carlisle because, well everyone knew Carlisle, and Bella had a tendency to land herself in the emergency room a few times. They spoke a while when Bella was in the hospital in Phoenix, when he couldn't stop thanking him for saving her, so he recognized him the instant that Carlisle opened the door. Alice and I were next on the most recognized list. We were always over. Bella was the dead give away, and of course she was one of the first that he had seen," Edward announced.

"What is Carlisle doing about it?" I wondered.

"Nothing," Bella replied, slightly calmer now, thanks to Jasper. "I told Carlisle to stall on my way up here. He said he would keep Charlie busy with touring the house. But we had to hurry up here…" she left us hanging there. For some reason she broke free from Edward. None of us dared to follow.

Author's Note: I won't be able to get online for about a week (haha, that's summer for you) But I will be writing in my notebook every chance I get and I will type and post them as soon as possible. Chapter 11 is almost done already and I'm not even close to dry of ideas...I just have to find a way to get them all to fit. Have a twitastic week people!


	11. Bella Cullen: Home

Bella Cullen

Chapter 11 – Home

Carlisle was continuing to show Charlie the house. Even if he wasn't I would have been able to sneak past Charlie. I hurried downstairs. Esme was waiting with a warm embrace.

I stood there for a moment, trying to regain the calmness that had left me when I had escaped Jasper's presence. Esme's motherly affection just made it worse, though. It reminded me of Renée. The other person I really didn't want to think about right now.

I finally collapsed on the piano bench. My hands trembled over the keys. I began to play a shaky version of my lullaby.

I had never wanted to learn how to play this particular song. The boys, however, still enjoyed going on hunting trips without the girls, and despite the fact that I knew he would never abandon me, for some reason mind chatter wasn't enough when Edward and I were that far apart. So he had taught me some of it to play on my own, to reassure myself that he would come home and sing it to me himself later.

I didn't know the whole ensemble, but I knew the melody, and a few of the complicated harmonies. I not only played it when I missed Edward, but when I missed home in general. It reminded me of when Edward would hum it to me while I tried to sleep. It reminded me of when I was human. I tried to remember the happy parts as much as I could, the memories that it didn't hurt me to have. Memories like the fact that Charlie was so elated that I had come to live with him in Forks at all. I had at least given him that much in my year and a half there.

One reason I was so stressed was what I had been introduced as. Carlisle's adopted daughter. I knew that that was the story, and I had thought of him as my father in Charlie's absence, but Charlie was still my dad. I probably hurt him more just by considering myself Carlisle's daughter than just not being there. It hurt me to know that I had caused him so much pain, and I didn't even know the full extent of his misery, yet.

Finally Carlisle came back downstairs with my father. If I had working tear ducts, I probably wouldn't have been able to see him appear.

The years had definitely changed him. Apparently my departure had, too, because I had never seen someone change so much when over the course of only four years. Had he been aging that quickly before and I just hadn't noticed?

I took a deep breath before I spoke.

"I know it's you, dad," I brought up sadly.

"Bella," was his only reply. His eyes suddenly turned cold, and my worst fear came true. "I thought you were Carlisle's daughter now."

He passed me to stomp childishly toward the door. Where did all the immaturity come from? Or was it just the growing up that I had done since living with my new family? He stopped before he reached the door.

"I don't know which one of you I hate more now," he began talking to Carlisle. "Your filthy son who swept my daughter off her feet and into your life, or you who claims her as your own?" And the whole time I thought he would be the most disappointed. He turned to open the door

"You don't know the first thing about what's going on here, dad!" I called. He turned. I had to dip. I regretted it. His thoughts burned me more than Edward's venom ever had. _I don't know what's worse. Being reintroduced to my daughter as if she wasn't or my daughter just accepting it? It's like I'm not her father anymore._

"You'll always be my father, dad," I whispered, still loud enough for him to hear.

"How did you…" he began.

Alice was by my side in a flash, Edward right behind her.

"What the hell are you doing, Alice?" he wondered.

"She's about to tell him," she replied. Suddenly Edward was just as panicked.

"Bella," Edward started. He wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me slightly aside. I wouldn't let him pull me very far. "Remember what trouble you were in when you knew?"

"That was only because you were trying to piss off the Volturi. That's the only reason they found out. They won't have to find out. The only reason they'll ever come here is to chat with Carlisle. As long as we won't have to do anything that requires us summoning Charlie to Italy, like when I had to go to save you, I don't think they'll ever figure out," I justified. Edward was shaking his head in disbelief.

"The one rule and you have to go and break it…"

"You broke it first," I reminded him. He still didn't release me from his grasp. "Edward, he's my father…and he hates me right now." I knew I shouldn't have taken advantage of him like that, knowing that he wouldn't have it. He wouldn't have it if my own father hated me, even if it was partially my fault.

His hands relaxed and found mine.

"Alice, I don't think it would really hurt that much. Charlie has been more than gracious, especially to me. Despite his poor attitude, he did still let me see Bella when we came back…we owe him this much. Bella deserves this much…"

I stepped forward cautioning my dad with every step.

"Dad…Don't freak out okay…and don't try to send me to a psych ward. Trust me; I could probably do things that would make them hospitalize themselves. It wouldn't be the best course of action…" I paused to make sure he was going to hear my out before I continued.

"You know how everyone in La Push had a sort of dislike for the Cullens – well, us?" Charlie nodded. "Well, you see, there's kind of this mutual hatred between us, at least people like us…I'm not like you anymore…It may be hard to believe when I tell you what the difference is, because we don't live up to most people's expectations, but I don't want you to be sad for me at all…I chose this, one of the few who did, and I couldn't be happier, so don't lose your wits okay?

"Just tell me what's wrong with you," Charlie prompted. "So I can decide whether or not I really want to be here." That hurt me deep. Edward's hand squeezed mine tightly. His thumb rubbed circles on my hand reassuringly.

"There's nothing wrong with me. Nothing can ever be wrong with me anymore, well, not physically. Like I said, please shove away any myths when you hear…all of us – Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper, Alice, Rosalie, Edward, myself – are…vampires. That feels really weird to say…kinda corny in a way," I concluded rather casually.

Charlie froze where he stood.

"Do you also want me to ignore the blood-drinking myth?" At that point, everyone was downstairs. We all broke into some kind of chuckle. What would separate a vampire from a human without that little difference?

"No, that part is true," I told him.

"But our family doesn't drink human blood. We feed off of animals," Edward chimed in, saving me from explaining everything.

"We don't sleep at all, so the coffin thing is a myth," Alice added.

"We sparkle in the sun, we don't burn," Rosalie announced.

"You can only kill us by ripping us apart and burning the pieces," Emmett explained. The others rambled off the other little things. It reminded me a lot of that night in Port Angeles when I would list off a bunch of legends and Edward would reply with was "myth." It was probably so much easier for him. It wasn't his father he had to confess to. And he didn't even have to confess, because I had pretty much guessed.

"What does this have to do with the people up at La Push," my father caught on quickly. He hadn't missed that part.

"Some of them are werewolves. Only that one is genetic. No one 'creates' anyone in that one. Every great-grandson of a werewolf becomes a werewolf, when vampires are around. Supposedly they evolved to destroy us. Once they become one, however, they're stuck like that. Even if the vampires leave. That's why they didn't like us. Bunches of the Quileutes still believe it's just superstitious nonsense, but a good handful of them no otherwise," Edward replied, unraveling the long complicated history.

"Do you remember right before I got ungrounded, before graduation, you said I needed to spend more time with Jacob, and I said that might be difficult…well Jacob is one of the werewolves. I guess young werewolves are harmful. I still haven't seen that, but Edward was trying to keep me a safe distance. He probably would have let me go if he could have come with me, but there's this treaty thing…" I began

I let Carlisle finish explaining the treaty. I was too overwhelmed. My father was here, and I was talking about Jacob – remembering Jacob, and with unusual clarity – for the first time in three years. Edward and I agreed not to approach that topic, to help me forget, to make my life a little less complicated, especially after the time that Jacob would…die. That was kind of hard at the beginning, with his habit of making fun of "dogs" with his family. Eventually that passed, and I had managed to forget Jacob completely, until forced to explain why I had to leave Forks so quickly after Edward and I got married.

My wedding: Speak of the devil.

Charlie examined my minimal changes. The slightly airbrushed look my face now held, the liquid gold in my eyes, the purple bruises. He finally noticed that the other Cullens had them, as well. Took him long enough. While he was doing this, he remembered what Emmett mentioned somewhere in there about us being pretty much made of chilled marble. Testing that theory, he grabbed my hand, which just happened to be the left one, since Edward was still holding my right, and remembered what wasn't there that should have been.

"We didn't want these inspector-ish-people to think that Carlisle and Esme just let their kids get married off as freshmen. Even though our wedding rings were all simple, not implicit that we were married to each other, even Edward would be creeped out by a wedding at that age. Don't worry, I'm still given away," I joked.

I found Charlie finally laughing. Realizing that he didn't have to worry about crushing me, he embraced me with all his might. I finally noticed that this must have been the lack of strength that Edward felt me use whenever I hugged him desperately to me, and for _I _was the one who had to consider being careful as I hugged him back, trying not to make him cold.

"So the choosing thing?" he wondered. He had gotten a lot smarter over the years. He didn't miss a beat.

"Well, you might have heard Edward talking to me about being in trouble before. Um, there's basically this royal vampire family that really has one rule to protect and that's that humans can't know about us. They found out about me when Edward tried to kill himself because he thought that I was dead and he tried to piss them off so that they would kill him, and the only way that Alice could think to save him was to drag me to Italy so that he could see that I wasn't dead so they kind of figured out that I knew and only let me leave because Edward promised that they were going to change them, but I had already wanted that anyway, I just thought that it wasn't possible anymore cause, well you remember what was happening. I didn't go to L.A. when I disappeared for three days like I told you. I was in Italy," I quickly explained in pretty much a really big run on sentence. "But like I told Edward, as long as we give them no reason to come hunting around here, you're in no danger, and neither are we."

He let that sink in for a few seconds, and I found myself being dragged into another hug, Edward finally letting go of my hand so that I could fully hug my father back. I felt more at home with my father in the know than I had in four years.


	12. Alice Cullen: Perfume and Promises

Alice Cullen

Chapter 12 – Perfume and Promises

It was fairly interesting, when Charlie departed. He promised a good report, reassured that we were physically indestructible, financially stable, and after learning about Jasper's talent, he knew it was an emotionally stable environment, too.

It was not at all what we had prepared for, but either way, we had passed the test.

It took a while to get Bella to calm back down about remembering Jacob, but eventually she was solemn. The house was quiet for a few hours. Then it slowly went back to normal. Except for me. My thoughts had begun to wonder to Jasper's promise.

I didn't know if I had even the slightest idea what I really wanted. Jasper and my relationship was perfect the way it was. As girly as I was, we had never needed the frills. I also wasn't someone like Edward or Bella. I couldn't just dip into his mind and tell whether or not I was just inconveniencing Jasper, if he was just promising to make me happy.

Emmett and Rosalie had been married I don't know how many times. Not that I couldn't remember each one, I just didn't want to count. Edward and Bella were married and his venom had been the toxin that brought her to this life. What could be more official? There was nothing official about my relationship with Jasper, and I figured that that must have been what I was hoping for.

I expressed all of this to Bella. I remembered that for the longest time she hadn't wanted a wedding. Just Edward and forever. She would have more understanding that the others.

"Well, your relationship is subtle, so maybe, if making it official is becoming a problem, maybe you should just do something to recognize it. You and Jasper are more than just the average dating couple," she commented. "But you act like less than that. I remember at the airport after Italy, you guys didn't hug each other, but yet the reunion was so sweet that even I could feel it. It doesn't look like that much of a deep relationship. I think you just need some sort of celebration. For once let it be obvious how great your relationship is. You just need one day. Maybe even make a tradition out of it. You know, have this party thing every few decades or something."

I thought about this for a while. Bella was very patient and sat wordlessly while I contemplated.

"What about the date. I don't want it to be a random day. It wouldn't mean that much," I stated.

"What about the day you guys met? Something you guys have in common is that you both were vampires when you met. You guys were brought together by more than just death and Carlisle saving one of you."

"That was the first time I could remember not being alone," I recollected.

"Do you remember the date?" Bella wondered.

"No. I didn't have a good sense of time back then. I didn't have anyone to ask what day it was. Jasper didn't know either. His life had only revolved around each oncoming battle. I'm sure Carlisle would know when we came to the family, thought," I suggested.

"Here, why don't I go ask Carlisle and you go talk to Jasper," Bella offered.

"Thanks."

Jasper was thrilled, of course. He had never been about the frills. There wasn't much time to plan, though. Charlie was over a lot and sometimes Bella forgot important parts of her human life and needed Edward and I to remind her of what we could.

We had to keep Charlie's visits minimal. It was bad enough that we were reminding Bella of her past, and it would be harder to forget the second time. But also, time was not on Charlie's side. The fact that we couldn't recognize him when he first came was our first sign. Like forgetting, separating Bella and Charlie would be harder the second time. And of course Bella would never forget these last memories with Charlie.

Carlisle had informed Charlie of the situation. That Rosalie and Emmett were planning on raising the foster child; that they desperately wanted a child of their own but couldn't.

Charlie agreed to pull as many strings as possible to land us a younger foster kid, a child that would be more than likely not taken away. He said it would be trickier to make sure that their parents were stripped of rights, but that he would try.

I saw the first call ahead of time. As always.

Her name was Evalyn. She was only four years old and had already been in the hospital five times from multiple cases of child abuse. We would be her first family since entering foster care.

Carlisle accepted right away. He also casually asked if there was a way that they wouldn't consider us for another child for a while. When asked why, he said that this little girl would need a lot of attention. He pulled it off. This solved our main problem: Only one child.

When she was dropped off, Carlisle examined her for any serious injuries that a regular doctor would have missed. Surprisingly there were none. When he was done with the physical he called (in a human-pitched volume) for us to assemble in the living room.

Evalyn clung to Carlisle's side like a little puppy as he led her to the living room. He introduced us to her one by one. I hoped Bella was keeping her internal ears open. I needed to ask her a question, and she was the only one who could project her thoughts to us.

Edward had no mind blocks,. He always heard everything. He nudged Bella and nodded in my direction.

_Is she scared of us, or just scared because of her past_," I wondered.

_A little of both. She's scared because we're all older. She's especially scared of Emmett and Jasper. The she's just scared because it's all unfamiliar. Fear is the only thing she knows._

Suddenly Jasper's head turned. He was looking out Bella. A flicker of comprehension flashed across his face and the room was filled with a wave of comfort and assurance.

Carlisle suggested to Evalyn that she got to know each of us individually over time. He let her free to do what she pleased among us.

Being small had some advantages.

Evalyn walked quietly and shyly toward me.

"Will you play with me?"

I led her to the room that we had begun to transform into a bonus room. Upon our request to take I Evalyn, we had acquired many toys.

Evalyn saw the dress up chest and eyed me hopefully.

"Go ahead," I encouraged with a smile. She pulled out a ball-gownish costume, some plastic sparkly heels, and every piece of jewelry she could find. She was still a little sore, so I helped her put them all on. She examined herself in the little mirror that only came up to my waist.

"You know what you need?" I asked. "A little bit of perfume."

Creative movement sometimes got a little sweaty…if you were human. I observed that many of the girls sprayed themselves with fragrances after class. To keep up with the charade, Bella, Rosalie and I had all purchased our own bottles. Mine was still in my pants pocket from the earlier school day. I sprayed to sprays and encouraged her to walk through.

"Will this stuff protect me from bad guys?" Evalyn questioned.

"No, it just makes you smell really pretty," I commented. I pretended to smell the French Vanilla scent. All I could smell was her blood. Her scent was stronger. I guessed it was due to the little pools, boiling directly under her skin in the form of bruises. I made a mental note to tell everyone to hunt more until she was further healed. "What would make you think it would protect you?" I inquired.

"Well this girl in my old preschool class said that garlic's smell kept away vampires, and there was this other stuff that you were supposed to spray around the room to keep monsters out of the closet," she explained.

"Those are just myths," I assured her truthfully. Though I wasn't lying, I felt in necessary to add a little giggle to imply that she was just silly. I didn't admit that there was no such thing as vampires. "But we'll never let anything hurt you," I promised.

"Do you swear?" she asked. "Pinky promise?"

What the hell was a pinky promise?

I held my pinky out in confusion. She wrapped her little finger around mine. I think I got the point.

"Pinky promise."


	13. Emmett Cullen: Merry Christmas

Emmett Cullen

Chapter 13 – Merry Christmas

Time flew with Evalyn around. It was amazing. Her spirits became so lifted that not only Jasper could feel it. The entire family grew happier, which we had never thought possible. The day that she was physically able to – completely healed of all bruises and pains – she began running around the house with boundless energy. It was worth choking up family meals, trying to look normal. She had become so comfortable with us and us with her, that before we knew it, winter break came.

It was a crucial time for Rosalie and myself.

So far we were on the right track. Evalyn had a strong bond with each of the girls, so she was already close with Rose. Now that Jasper and Rosalie had their licenses, Jasper had been taking Alice, Bella and Edward to school in the Volvo, while Rosalie spent a little extra time getting Evalyn ready and we would take her to her new preschool in Bella's Audi.

Winter break was crucial for us to get in as close as we could if we were ever going to be more parental than Carlisle and Esme. With everyone around more often, we would have a little more competition among the house.

Charlie had become "Uncle Charlie" to Evalyn, and she was almost as ecstatic when he visited as Bella was. That had not been on our agenda. That was going to make it a little more difficult when he left.

Supposedly Charlie had retired from being police chief of Forks two years after we left. He moved to Colorado a year later when a friend of his called him up with a job offer, which he obviously took.

We generally didn't celebrate Christmas. We had everything material that we wanted, so there was no point in gift giving. Plus, the sentimental meaning was supposed to be about a kid being sent from heaven to one day die to send us all to heaven. Not to bash any religion, but it was kind of a moot point when you're most likely not going to die. It was for this reason that we hardly celebrated Easter as well.

But this year we had Charlie and Evalyn, so Edward was cooking through most of Christmas day after we all opened a small amount of presents. Evalyn of course, received the most. Charlie helped Edward whenever it came time to test taste. He wasn't much help, however, as Bella had warned. Charlie wasn't much of a cook, so he didn't know what to add.

Bella had already walked Charlie through Vampire 101, so he knew we would all have to choke up Edward's day-long efforts once Evalyn fell asleep. That fact made him laugh pretty much all throughout dinner.

Evalyn stuffed herself to oblivion. I don't think she had ever seen so much food in her life. After she ate, she tugged at everyone to play with her and her new toys. Everyone had their own staged duties to fill to leave Rose and I alone with Evalyn.

Bella was going to help Esme with dishes, but promised to play with her the next day. Edward was storing the leftover food, which would take a while. But she was few to help, he had suggested. He also mentioned providing holiday music on the piano later. That made her happy. She loved to watch and hear Edward play. Carlisle was working a double shift at the hospital and had to leave right after dinner. Alice had to clean up all the wrapping stuff and promised to play when she was done. Jasper had to "work on the cars" to get them ready so that we could all go sledding for New Year's. That was such a total lie, more than the others. At least the others were doing things that still needed to be done (only at a human pace now). The cars didn't need any work. We kept regular maintenance on all of them.

Evalyn looked at me, almost with no hope now.

"Will you play with me, Emmett?" she wondered, her eyes on the ground. "There's not much that you would want to play with because you're a boy…but…" she trailed off.

"Do you want to color? I know we've got a lot of crayons and paper and I haven't colored in _forever_," I admitted with strong honesty.

She took the offer, jumping up to grab the paper while I followed her, fetching the crayons. We sat at the coffee table in the family room. Vampire memory is perfect, and I couldn't recall anytime that she had colored without a coloring book. It would be interesting to see what she would draw.

I shouldn't have been surprised when she began to draw a bunch of stick figures, one incredibly shorter than the others.

I purposefully drew poorly. For some reason, Vampires are good at pretty much everything. Even if, like me, the action hadn't been performed in decades. So it took Herculean effort to look bad for her sake.

The positions that the stick figures had taken was quite, and I almost couldn't tell who was supposed to be who.

"What are you drawing?" I inquired, truly curious. I knew it was us, but what we were doing was a complete mystery to me.

"That's Rosalie. She's holding me so that if there's any danger, she can run with me. You're right there, protecting me and her. Bella and Edward are right here. They're watching to make sure we're okay. They're holding hands because they protect each other. This is Alice, and she's with Jasper, trying to calm all of us down. Esme's right there and she's really scared because we're all afraid. Carlisle's not there because he's saving everybody else, like he does every day. I'm perfectly fine. See I'm smiling. I'm happy because my whole family is looking after me," she explained.

I stroked her curly blonde hair. There wasn't much that we could hide from her. That almost scared me, but Alice had been doing a pretty good job convincing her that there was no such thing as monsters like Vampires.

"What did you draw?" Evalyn asked innocently, as if her previous explanation was no big deal.

"I drew the prettiest little lady on the planet who's name is Evalyn Rose," I announced, flashing a craptastic coloring of the girl in front of me.

She let out the cutest little giggle. She stood up and ran around the table to hug me.

"Bella was right. You are a big teddy bear," he managed to tell me through chuckles. With that, she reached across the table and grabbed her drawing. She plopped down in my lap and stretched her arm out to snatch the brown crayon. Once she had it in her hot little hand, she added two big bear ears to my head on the picture.

She quickly stood up and handed it to me.

"Merry Christmas!"


	14. Bella Cullen: Belated Gifts

Bella Cullen

Chapter 14 – Belated Gifts

Evalyn often complained if she had to go to bed before any of us other "kids" were even in our pajamas. Needless to say, we all were in nightwear by seven. We had all been forced to acquire this attire when Rosalie started having frequent slumber parties (the result of me asking everyone to be more social). The slumber parties had been pretty much eliminated now that we had Evalyn.

It felt normal; my first dose of normalcy in four years. Everyone preparing to sleep even though we couldn't.

Rosalie – of course dressed in a fitting, flashy silk night gown – escorted Evalyn to her room to tuck her in at 7:30, after letting her hug each of us goodnight. While she had still been healing, she had used our chilled skin to appease her bruises, so to her, it was a welcoming sense of comfort every time her skin came in contact with ours.

For that reason, Evalyn had no problem holding Rosalie's had all the way to her bedroom.

Emmett had challenged all of us to a little wii tournament when Rosalie came back downstairs. It was actually rather fun. All of the guys lost; they hadn't done much physical activity in their pajama pants. Being held up by elastic wasn't that great for jumping around, so they tripped a lot. Rosalie and I tied for first, due to her short gown and my cotton shorts. Alice landed an easy third. Her flannel pants had caused her a problem, too, but her dancer's step landed her above the boys.

When the tournament was over, we all retired to our bedrooms. I stayed behind for a few seconds to help Alice with some of the decorations that had fallen. But that's all it took: seconds. Not long enough to postpone the inevitable.

When I reached the bedroom, the bathroom light being on was yet another reminder. The toilet flushed and the sink ran. When I approached the doorway, Edward smiled.

Edward's smile still made my heart jump. That was the only moving it did nowadays, and despite the fact that toothpaste was foaming over his perfect teeth, his smile still would have left me lightheaded…if I had still been capable of that sensation.

I took a deep breath. Regurgitating was not fun. Luckily, we had no stomach acid, so our teeth were not compromised. We only brushed to catch the leftovers.

Edward held my hair back, as usual. Another sense of normalcy. It's what any loving husband would do if his wife was miserable vomiting up her entire day's consumption of food. Vomiting was the reason why I actually like days that we had school. I never had to fake lunch those days.

He always tried to, but I would never let him kiss me until after I brushed my teeth. I had never kissed anyone right after they threw up, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't that pleasant. After all that he continued to do fore me, I wouldn't let him experience that kind of misfortune.

I began to wonder what he was up to when I didn't feel him soothingly rub my back while I brushed, like he usually did. It didn't annoy me that he wasn't there, it was just unusual. I spat and rinsed before I turned to see where he was.

He was lying casually on the bed, twirling a small box in his hands.

"Couldn't give this to you in front of Evalyn," he explained.

"Why not?" I inquired, curious now.

"It has to do with the charade," he continued. "Open it."

I took the box of his hand and quickly pulled off the shiny gold wrapping. Inside the simple white box underneath was the most beautiful gold bracelet I had ever seen (and living with Rosalie, you see some pretty nice jewelry). It was one of those bracelet that didn't have a clasp, just one of those openings that you slip your wrist through. The gold wove around the bracelet in little swirls. I slid it onto my right wrist, my left still occupied by the charm bracelet that I always tried not to think about. Edward still hadn't left me take it off.

When I was done admiring the beautiful bracelet, the curiosity came back.

Edward didn't even have to dip into my mind (that part was due to me not letting him) to know one of my unspoken questions.

"Yes. This, too, was my mother's," he announced. Surprise, surprise. Every piece of jewelry I wore on regular basis had some sort of connection with his mother. The heart-shaped diamond on my bracelet, my engagement ring, we had even been married with his parent's wedding rings, and now this.

"And it fits into the charade how?" I wondered.

"It's how I'm going to 'ask' you to date me," he explained. He really hadn't like the idea of me skipping out on the dance, and we hadn't thought of something else in time, so as far as the school was concerned, we were still just really close siblings. "We'll say that all of the guys went to Chicago before Christmas and I brought this back for you, confessing to you how much you meant to me and asked if you wanted to follow our siblings' example. You say that you'll think about it, which gives us an excuse to at lease act a little more affectionate. Around Valentine's Day you accept. Then for Valentine's Day I give you a promise ring. That way you can wear at least your engagement ring to school. I see that look on your face each morning. How much you hate taking it off. This'll take care of that," he concluded. "It's a little late, but it'll work."

"Leave it to you…" I scoffed.

"What?" he asked playfully.

"Theatrical tendencies," I simply stated.

"Hey, it fits. You took a while to accept my proposal, and then it was a few days later when you started wearing your ring," he reminded me.

"True enough," I admitted.

Edward then rolled on top of me. He still treated me like I was made of glass most of the time. He hadn't let my physical enhancements change the way he handled me. So I barely felt any of his weight, not like it would have hurt me anyway. He brought his face to mine and kissed me, over and over, as gentle as a vampire could be while still being passionate at the same time.

For the past month we had all been really cautious to be caught with Evalyn around. Needless to say that this was physically the closest we had been in a while. I was more than eager to continue.

"Merry Christmas," Edward wished. I couldn't tell if he was intentionally being seductive or not.

I guessed not when he began to roll back over. I was so glad that I was now able to fold on to him with some force. I pulled him back on top of me and hugged him closer, kissing him with only half the gentleness that he had exercised.

"Christmas isn't over, yet," I reminded him with a grin.

Edward smiled back, and moment later, his mouth was back on mine.

I could see the outcome of my decision, the teasing looks the others would give us in the morning, especially the whooping from Emmett and the slight disappointment from Carlisle and Esme that we couldn't "control ourselves."

_They can all mind their own damn business_, I told myself, keeping Edward out, still. I didn't want his silent reply or need for explanation to postpone anything.

That familiar thrilling sensation washed through me as Edward pulled his shirt over his head. This was going to be a merry Christmas indeed.


	15. Jasper Hale: Rerun

Jasper Hale

Chapter 15 – Rerun

There was vast variety of emotions when we got back to school. The excitement to show off new clothes, the disappointment that someone's boyfriend broke up with them over the break, and all that fun stuff that always reoccurs whenever there's a break longer than three days.

But nothing compared to the mood-swings occurring by lunchtime. The Cullen/Hale involvement in sports had made all of us kind of an icon. By third period, everyone knew about the step in Edward and Bella's relationship. They weren't even "dating" yet and it was huge. The moods were so varied that I often found myself confused on how _I _was feeling. A lot of the girls were jealous. Even some of the seniors, though Edward was a "freshman." Many people were disgusted, like they had been with the rest of us. Everyone's opinions were constantly changing due to all of the gossip and stories.

The friends that Bella and Edward had made were emotionally stable. They were all thrilled for the two of them. Of course, Bella's girlfriends were more talkative about it. They spent most of the time encouraging her to do it, to go out with Edward.

I could the lift in both of their spirits as they walked into the cafeteria. Bella was "letting" Edward put his arm around her, but not much more until she "decided" if she wanted to date him. I could sense the comfort that the simple gesture gave them. It felt more natural for them and they didn't have to put any distance between them.

Andrew's emotions were stronger than most of the other students'. He was jealous of Edward, angry that Bella hadn't turned him down, and frustrated that he probably wouldn't get a word in through the wall of siblings. His consistency was rather impressive. Most humans eventually gave up after a while. Not this guy.

His consistency was impressive, but his intelligence wasn't. Even for a human, he was rather dumb.

Unfortunately, curiosity wasn't as much an emotion as it was a state of mind. Andrew was in Weight Lifting third period, when I was in Sport's Development, and no matter what manipulating I did, he still would have chosen to annoy the hell out of me the next day in the locker room.

"Doesn't it just bother you? The _possibility _of them being together?" he wondered.

"If it bugged me that much do you really think I would be dating Alice?" I asked him. His stupidity was record setting.

"But at least you and your brother are dating someone with a different last name."

"The name doesn't matter," I exclaimed. His lack of brain cells frustrated me for some irrational reason. "Besides, Rosalie and I are technically Cullens as well, but we both chose to keep our names," I lied. I was rather impressed with my ability to improvise, especially in my anger. Generally I wasn't the one who had to lie, but I guess fibbing was one of those things that you acquire with eternal life.

"I think I'm going to try again. I'm going to try asking her out. I still have two weeks in Creative Movement with her before next semester starts. She's had time to think since homecoming."

This guy seriously forgot to pay his brain bill or something. No level of stupidity compared to his.

"She gave you a flat out 'no'. She told Edward 'maybe'," I reminded him.

His mood lifted for some strange and bizarre reason.

"You're wrong…she first said she'd get back to me, and then turned me down. With any luck, she'll do the same to Edward, considering she hasn't given him a complete yet," he concluded.

I gave up trying to compare the two situations and decided to try reminding him of his own misfortune.

"She got you beat up in three different ways," I recollected. "Plus, our entire family hates you now. As much as we all love Bella, she knows that we will personally knock some sense into her if she accepts you."

There was a pause before he spoke again.

"Damn, She's such a fucking tease," he stated.

"Um, she's not leading you on at all; therefore, she's not teasing you. Though with Edward, it kind of does seem that way. We've come up with the theory that she's just 'thinking' to make Edward wait. You should see how they act at home. It's definitely going to end in Edward's favor. But, yes, she's obviously teasing him," I threw in for his anguish. This was fun.

I walked out of the locker room to wait by the portable classrooms. Bella and Alice would just be getting out of math. When the door opened, they were the first ones out. Bella was laughing pretty hard when she smiled at me before running off to meet Edward.

I looked at Alice suspiciously.

"I told her to listen," she explained. Of courser Alice would have seen Andrew approaching me.

"So she does realize he's going to pester her next period in block?" I verified.

"Better," Alice stated.

"Better how?" I wondered.

"He's going to pester her during lunch," she announced.

That _was _better. We would all be there. But there was still a burning question in my mind.

"Why didn't you warn me he was going to bug the shit out of me?" I asked.

"Well, the outcome of you beating him up at lunch wasn't pretty, so I thought letting you dangle Edward and Bella's relationship in front of his face would be fun for you… and safer for the rest of us," she explained.

With that, I kissed her softly before I took her hand, escorting her to lunch.


	16. Bella Cullen: Lunch

Bella Cullen

Chapter 16 – Lunch

All Alice had told me was that he was going to try during lunch. I liked maintaining a sense of surprise, even if it was an unpleasant surprise. I tried not to wait, not to look for Alice to stand completely still, bracing herself for the oncoming event.

Alice was walking ahead of me in the lunch line. Someone stepped in front of her, and if I didn't have inhuman reflexes, I would have run into her.

"Excuse me, didn't we get over cutting after third grade?" she asked coldly.

"I just wanted to ask Bella something, and there was no room in between you and her, so…"Andrew justified, facing her now.

Alice reached around his head and grabbed a hold of a chunk of his hair.

"You're not asking Bella anything," she stated. With that, she slammed his head down into his tray. "It's no brick wall, but It'll do for now."

Andrew wiped his face, before proceeding to punch Alice.

Alice was faster. She caught his food-covered hand an inch before it made contact with her pixie face.

"That," she said, gesturing to his messy hand, "is disgusting."

I could see in her mind what was about to happen next. I couldn't help myself to dip into her mind when it came to this particular situation. I could also see that she had no intention of stopping it from happening.

Andrew swung his other arm around until his fist made contact with her cheek. I could see what was going through her thoughts. In her head she had calculated exactly when to move her head so that Andrew got full satisfaction of the punch without the physical toll of her granite structure.

I heard Jasper's complaints in my head, but Alice had told him earlier not to do anything. I only hoped he would listen to her.

Edward heard Jasper, too, and before even _I _knew it, he wedged himself in between Andrew and Alice.

"You did _not _just punch my sister."

"What are _you _going to do about it?" Andrew wondered, with a lame attempt at intimidation.

"With you, the answer is always 'you're about to find out,'" Edward stated before delivering a swift punch to Andrew's much-abused gut.

The blow landed Andrew on his back. From there he attempted to knock Edward down by swiping Edward's feet from underneath him.

Something told me that Edward had been in a couple of fights before in one of his previous schools. He made his fall look authentic, though he was perfectly capable of avoiding anything that Andrew threw his way. He broke his fall with his hands with expertise, preventing his body's collision with the floor from sounding like thunder.

Andrew stood up and ran.

There's a really beautiful part about high school fights, especially at lunch. There's this thing called a crowd. It gathers around at the scene. Andrew had no where to go.

Before Andrew had even com to a stop, Edward grabbed him by the jacket and threw him to Emmett. Emmett did nothing about the thing being flown toward him. He just let Andrew slam into him before letting him fall to the ground.

Andrew laid there in pain for a moment while the crowd around us continued to cheer. Generally they wouldn't care who was fighting and who would win, just that there was a fight and they _had _to see it. But of course, we were the infamous Cullens. Sports put the crowd in our favor.

"Hey Rose," Emmett brought up casually, Andrew still lying at his feet. "I know you said that you had wanted to play tennis with his head, but will soccer work?"

With a light (well, light for Emmett) tap into his side, Andrew was sent sliding across the floor to Rosalie. Rosalie grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him to her face.

"We've told you before: You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. And you've messed with Bella, Edward _and _Alice. That's three, buddy." With that, she slammed him into the rails of the lunch line. That put him right by me.

When he noticed this, he flipped his disarrayed hair and looked at me.

"Hey," he said casually.

"What are you doing? You act as if nothing just happened," I commented.

"I'm trying to ask you out again. Look I know –" he began.

"Do you _have _a death wish?" I asked him.

A white hand slapped Andrew's shoulder with a sickening sound. I heard a whimper escape his lips and could see the pain on his face.

"If you do, I could easily arrange wish fulfillment," Edward warned from behind Andrew.

"That won't be necessary, Edward," I told him. "I'd be perfectly content with just this…" I didn't even have to pull my arm back to get a decent punch.

Alice, Edward and I all looked up at the same time. Alice could see them and Edward and I could hear them. Security was coming.

"Disperse!" I cried. "Security!"

If any of the Cullens ever got suspended, I think that the rest of the school would probably gang up on the person responsible. In fact, most of them were thinking thoughts similar to my prediction, so I didn't really think, I knew. No one in our group of spectators wanted to get any of us in trouble, so the crowd broke easily.

We hurried (still only half of us with food) to our usual table and sparked a casual conversation about Evalyn.

I looked over at Andrew. He had every intention of blaming everything on Edward. He was willing to risk every student beating the living crap out of him if it meant getting Edward in trouble.

_Jasper_, I mentally called. When he looked at me, I nodded in Andrew's direction.

_I'll see what I can do_, he replied.

Whatever he did, it worked.

In the car on the way home, I asked what he did.

"I threw pretty much every emotion I could at him at once. I couldn't confuse his mind directly, my manipulation only works on a person's body, but it got him thinking about his emotions, and when he tried to figure out which one he was feeling, he got _really _confused. When security asked him what was going on, he probably couldn't think that straight about anything, let alone what happened between all of us. But don't worry, I'll make sure he's scared whenever he comes near any of us," he guaranteed.

I couldn't help laughing. Soon I found the rest of the car's occupants laughing with me as we pulled into the garage.


	17. Edward Cullen: Valentine's Day

Edward Cullen

Chapter 17 - Valentine's Day

Valentine's day was special for more than just Bella and myself. This was our first Valentine's day with Evalyn

Evalyn's abusive family before us had never bought her those little cards that the kids gave to their classmates and all that fun stuff. So Evalyn insisted on all of us "kids" going with her to pick out cards and candy. Of course she couldn't pick out just one candy, so we also ended up chasing her pig tails up and down the isles until we found the perfect goody bags to stuff the candy in.

When we got home, she put us to work. She had all of the girls writing messages on the cards (because "boys have bad handwriting") and all of the guys were stuffing the goody bags and taping some of the candy to the cards. It was kind of like an assembly line, and though the human pace was slow, it was still quite fun.

Then Rosalie suggested that we make cookies. Evalyn insisted on adding all of the ingredients herself, but refused to stir because it made her arm tired. We had to make three times as much frosting as necessary, though. Evalyn was having fun eating large quantaties plain, and then continued to smother half of it on all of our faces. That sparked a little bit of a food fight with flour and backing soda until Esme began to scold us for making a mess in the kitchen. We put the cookies in the fridge and Emmett (very fatherly) ordered her not to touch the wrapped ones until she took them to class.

Flyers were hung all around the school, enouraging everyone to buy their Valentines flowers, candies, and cards from the floral shop, to be delivered during class on Valentine's Day. When we reached the floral shop, I made Bella wait in the hall while I placed an oder. When I came back out, she had one eyebrow raised.

"Don't peak," I told her. I knew she probably wouldn't, but no harm in checking.

"What's the purpose of sending me flowers when I can't smell them anymore?" she inquired as we began walking again. "Plus, it's not like I can take them home or anything. What would Evalyn think if she knew that you were dating your sister?"

"We'll tell Evalyn they're just from some guy at school, which they are. He's just some guy who happens to be your husband posing as your brother.

"Shhhhh!" she scolded, looking around nervously.

"Don't worry, nobody heard," I assured her. "If you don't believe me, listen for yourself."

Her expression changed, making me believe that she did, and when satisfied, she returned back to the subject.

"I still don't see the point in you spending perfectly good money on something that I won't even get the full enjoyment of," she ranted.

"How many times are we going to go over this? That money is just sitting around gathering dust, anyway. I might as well show my love and make the house look nice at the same time," I persuaded her. Finally, she rolled her eyes.

"You're impossible," she scoffed. She then wound her fingers through mine. "There's only a little over a week until Valentine's Day. I do believe this was your idea," she reminded me, lifting our intertwined hands, flashing my mother's bracelet.

"It _was _my idea, wasn't it?" I joked.

Then something vile caught my eye. Bella followed my gaze until her eyes found Andrew. She looked at me, scolding me.

"Don't do anything rash," she warned.

"Don't worry," I told her. "I think I'm just going to, oh how did Andrew himself put it...um...tease him a little." I brought our clasped hands up to my face and kissed hers lightly.

"Oh please," she chuckled, leaning against the wall. "I think you can tease him better than that." She dropped my hand and wrapped both of hers around my waist.

I watched her eyes light up when I smiled her favorite smile. I took her face in my hands, leaning in to press my lips to hers. I could feel her lips twitching into a smile as we both listened to Andrew's complaints in our minds. She might have also been happy that we didn't have to hide anymore, but Andrew's string of profanities was so fun to listen to, it was definately the main contribution factor.

We had loads of fun teasing him all throughout block. Three classes of pure agona for Andrew. Then Bella had the time of her life projecting images and thoughts into his mind. She even used his own voice, too, making him believe that he was thinking the thoughts naturally.

Bella almost made us late to school on Valentine's Day. She wouldn't leave the house without her engagement ring, but she couldn't find either of her rings.

"Look, Edward, I know exactly where I put my rings, but they're not there. I didn't just forget. They're just missing," she insisted.

"I'm sure Evalyn went through here or something, but with her around, we don't have time to scan the house for them," I assured her. "We'll find them tonight when she's asleep."

"You promised," she tried to tell me.

"I never promised anything," I reminded her. "I just said that the story would be that I gave it to you on Valentine's Day. So actually it makes more sense if you begin wearing it tomorrow. It'll seem more realistic if I 'took you to dinner' or something and gave it to you then, than if I randomly gave it to you at breakfast in the morning," I explained. She finally let me put my arm around her and walk her out the door.

The flowers began showing up during second period. I hoped that they would deliver my gift to Bella during one of the three classes we shared with Andrew.

The surprise was on me, however, when two red roses tied together in ribbon were given to Bella by one of the floral shop students. That was _not _my order, and my entire body stiffened when I heard Andrew's thoughts behind me.

_This is it, this is it, this is it._

Bella knew me better than that. She knew that whenever someone in our family spent money, we spent a lot of it. She knew that if I bought her anything, it would be more than just two roses.

She knew who they were from. So she had loads of fun projecting thoughts and images into Andrew's mind, while offering me one of the roses.

"Would you like to share the honor?" she questioned with a smile.

"Thank you, so very much, for thinking of me," I replied, grinning back.

Together, we pulled the roses apart pedal by pedal.

In fourth period, my flowers came. Thankfully, that was English. Part of block. Andrew was there.

To Bella's surprise, there would be no need to search the house later.

Around the stem of my exquisite bouquet of white and red roses, above the ribbon that tied the flowers together, was her engagement ring. I had hidden her wedding ring earlier so that she wouldn't suspect anything when only her engagement right was gone.

_Did you really think that _I _would let you leave the house if your rings were missing_? I asked her mentally, smiling innocently.

Bella smacked my arm. That was something she really enjoyed about her inhancements; she could hit me without hurting herself.

_You are paying for this big time_, she warned. It hardly seemed threatening.

_Whatever I have to do..._I answered suggestively.

When we got home, Evalyn was jumping around on a sugar high. It was hilarious watching her use up all that energy in any way she could find. She kicked Alice's butt at the wii, beat me in a race, won arm wrestling matches against both Emmett and Bella, and then was pretty much wasted.

When we were all in our sleepwear, Evalyn challenged us to a cookie eating contest with the leftover cookies. She won that one without us just letting her win. We definately were in no mood to stuff cookies in our mouths.

Bella had to "take care of some things upstairs," which roughly translated to "I'm choking up dinner and cookies." When Rosalie took Evalyn upstairs, I did the same in the downstairs bathroom, rinsing thoroughly afterwards. Then I raced upstairs without even paying attention to my family's thoughts in my head. I knew what they were thinking, anyway.

She was waiting. Sitting criss-cross on the bed. Time for me to pay.


	18. Alice Cullen: Authenticity

Alice Cullen

Chapter 18 - Authenticity

The guys were ditching. We all had to take turns hunting lately. It was awkward enought that we all went "backpacking" on sunny days, so we all couldn't hunt at the same time on top of that. Weekends were off-limits, too, since we've had Evalyn. So the guys and girls would switch off. Carlisle and Esme would go on "dinner dates," or so we told Evalyn.

Without the guys, the table at lunch was pretty unpopulated, so Bella invited a few of her friends to sit with us. One was her best friend, Emma Jane. Bella loved calling her by her middle name. Emma Jane had a death glare much like the Volturi's Jane, but she didn't melt your mind to the point of insanity. She did, however, torture your mind in other ways, just no quite so literally. I was familiar with Emma Jane. She was a really good friend of Edward and Bella's and she had used to come over a lot before we had Evalyn.

Along with Emma Jane came Megan, Emma Jane's twin. If I hadn't already learned it from Bella, I probably wouldn't have even guessed that they were twins, and I was psychic. Emma Jane had short, blonde hair, while Megan's was a light shade of brown. Megan wore her hair slightly longer, barely brushing her shoulders, letting her bangs fall into her eyes. It was hard to tell who had dyed their hair, because whoever it was did regular root touch ups and colored their eyebrows strategically. But I could see Megan planning her next root touch-up. The one thing that the two shared in their wardrobe was the armwarners that both of them wore.

It was only when Megan flipped her hair out of her eyes to read the label on her drink that I saw the resemblense. Her and Emma Jane shared the same big, emerald green eyes that held a tint of gold near each pupil. Their facial structures were also similar, the same distinct cheekbones, the small, tight lips that I was amazed could stretch into a smile. Both had a jawline fit for a Japanese anime. Amongst all the similarities, they were still clearly fraternal, especially since Megan was exactly one inch taller.

"So, are the guys having fun snowboarding?" Megan asked in a tone that scared me. I didn't know Megan that well, but I knew that she was slightly more intelligent than the average AP student, she just chose regular classes to avoid homework. She could easily put two and two together if she had been in Emma Jane's place. Luckily, Emma Jane never had much of an appetite, so she hadn't dug through our (at the time) empty cupboards. Megan definately would have.

"I don't know. They're too busy to call or text or anything," Bella announced.

"Are you sure you don't want anything?" Emma Jane asked, gesturing to our un-eaten food.

"We never actually eat lunch. Carlisle and Esme hate it. They check our food account records to make sure we're buying lunch. We buy all this to make them happy. I don't know why they have this obsession with paying for seven kids to have each meal," I quickly fibbed, though I felt that Megan saw right through it.

I really wished Edward were there at that point. Bella probably wasn't dipping, and Edward wouldn't have to. He would have just heard. Then he could have used our secret language of nodding and head shaking to answer my hunch.

"So, are you guys still going to the movies with us Friday?" Megan wondered, excitedly.

Friday? There was going to be sun on Friday. So much sun that it was rather insane for Colorado. But I didn't have to worry about Bella forgetting.

"No, I'm sorry. I haven't had the chance to tell you, we're going backpacking," Bella explained.

"The forecast says it's going to be gross on Friday, though," Megan stated. "Why would your father take you out backpacking.

Shit. With my unmistakeable weather forecast, we rarely turned on the TV for more than just cartoons with Evalyn or the wii. We never watched the news. I knew Megan was eventually going to catch on to something. I threw a desperate glance at Bella.

_I've got nothing,_ she told me.

"He says that he used to do it all the time," Rosalie threw in. She had had so little part in the conversation that both Bella and I had kind of forgotten she was there, and us forgetting anything was rather unusual. "He wants us to appreciate nature, even at its ugliest. The rest of us are just hoping the weather will clear up," she added, almost making Bella and I laugh.

"You guys should take us with you or something," Megan suggested. She sometimes got on my nerves with her prying. "Our mom is allergic to everything, so we can't do much outdoor stuff, and you always come back saying you had so much fun."

_Trust me, it's not as amazing when you're _listening _to the fun, _I thought to myself.

Bella threw a nasty look in my direction. Okay, apparently she was dipping today.

"I'll ask Carlisle if we can pick you up sometime on Friday and go camping or something," I blurted out without thinking. Saturday was due to be cloudy again. "We could go hiking and whatever else Carlisle has planned during the day so that he doesn't complain about missing family time and then we can pick you up at night and go camping," I quickly formulated.

"That's a great idea, Alice," Emma Jane complimented. "We'll ask."

"Fantastic!" Megan agreed. Then, both of them gathered up their things.

"Talk to you in English, Bella," Emma Jane called before following her sister.

Bella turned to me.

"Impressive," she commented.

"I had to think fast. This way we hang out all day while it's sunny. Carlisle, Esme and a few other people can go in yours or Edward's car, and we'll say they're going ahead to 'set up.' We'll pick them up in the Mercedes that way we can pick them up before it's completely dark. Then we can camp with them for the rest of the weekend, which is sure to be cloudy."

"Rosalie had a really nice save there, too," Bella recalled.

"It wasn't that big of a deal," Rosalie admitted. "I was texting Carlisle the whole time. Megan and Emma Jane were too busy talking to you to notice how fast my fingers were going. I was able to get a good reply in time." I didn't remember when Rosalie started being so modest, but everyone was liking it.

"Leave it to Carlisle," I scoffed.

"Oh, Alice?" Bella began. "I don't EVER want to hear you think anything like that again," she warned.

"Sorry," I replied, completly unrepentant. "But it's true. It was bad enough before you two got married and we had to deal with Rosalie and Emmett. You guys are almost worse."

At that point, Rosalie gave me a look that much resembled a combination between Emma Jane's death glare, and the look that Bella had given me earlier.

"I will accompany Bella in any torture she plans against you...even if you see it ahead of time. At least she isn't projecting the thoughts into your head, you thought of them yourself. Hey Bells? Do me a favor? Next time you or Edward hear her think anything about Emmett and I, send her a nasty little image, okay?" she requested.

"I'll conjure up something," she promised. "Not something too bad though, Alice is no good to us crazy."

"Ha ha," I replied, completely unenthusiastic.

The camping trip actually wasn't that bad. Evalyn loved Emma Jane and spent every single second with her when she wasn't with Rosalie and Emmett. I actually began to think that it had been a good idea. It created a sense of authenticity. For once we weren't pretending. We actually were outdoors.

It was also good because Edward was there. He could make sure that Megan didn't suspect anything the entire time.

After Evalyn was asleep, Emmett told scary stories about bears around the campfire. We had to hold back our laughter. It was funny to us because these were Emmett's hunting experiences. Whenever he spoke of a bear, he was actually talking about himself, and the unsuspecting camper, was the actual bear. It was hilarious to think about how silly Emma Jane and Megan would feel if they knew that these scary stories were just Emmett having dinner.

I soon learned that Megan wasn't always annoying and prying. I actually found myself enjoying her presense. Her and Emma Jane had similar senses of humor, but Megan was slightly more sarcastic and had a very diverse vocabulary. She spoke in phrases I had never even heard before, and as old as I was, that was hard to do.

She was hilarious when her boyfriend called. He tried to do the whole "you hang up first" thing. She just simply said "whatever" and hung up.

"Mother of shit that guy needs to grow some balls," she commented, rolling her eyes.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"It's an inoffensive little click, and if you're repeating the same five words over and over again, the conversation's over anyway," she replied.

I found myself liking Megan more and more the further the weekent progressed. The whole family loved her when she announced that she had dated Andrew and now hated him almost as much as we did.

I had never had a best friend until Bella (that was another thing I had yet to thank Edward for). Now that Bella was my sister, it was nice to have that position filled again with someone else.

It worked out perfectly, too. Emma Jane was Bella's best friend. Megan was mine. Emma Jane was always with Megan, I was always around Bella.

It was authentic enough.

Authors note: Sorry it took so long. It took me a while to chose between certain events. Oh now that Breaking Dawn is coming out, I would very much appreciate it if you would comment or PM telling me whether or not you will want me to continue, since the new book will kind of make my story a moot point.


	19. Rosalie Hale: Crazy Spring

Rosalie Hale

Chapter 19 - Crazy Spring

Our spring sports agenda had not exactly worked out as planned. The guys were all planning to join baseball (they wondered why they never had at any of our other schools) and the girls were set to join softball.

The plan first started to derail when Bella complained about the differences between human and vampire baseball. Even as a human, she had not been that thrilled with regular major-league baseball. She especially hated that we had to join "solftball." She found it rather degrading that they didn't just create a girl's baseball league instead of inventing a whole new sport for it.

Then Edward's P.E. coach recruited him for track. He got himself in that mess, though. Edward had gotten stuck in the same P.E. class as Andrew this semester. He had gotten a tad bit too competitive. Bella managed to get him to agree when she offered to join him. That made it pretty much impossible for us to drag Bella's ass into softball.

We hoped that would be the only plain-changing we would experience. Unfortunately I was the next to fall from the wagon when I saw the fliers.

A bunch of girls with glitter in their hair, which was strategically pinned and tied back out of their faces were grouped together for a team photo. Their attire was flashy and clung to every curve of their bodies. Around the team picture were pictures of competitions. Some of the girls were twisted into positions that an ordinary human would have thought possible.

Gymnastics.

Bella had been right. Vampire baseball was a blast. No such thing as a ball vs. a strike, no umpires, only Esme to referee. Oh - and no booing crouds. Human baseball (softball, too) had too many rules, was way too slow, and people generally got into fights. Fun stuff.

I had never hid the fact that I was proud of the way I looked. I would put those smiling girls to shame. They would never have to worry about me hurting myself with the tricks that could break your neck. I would never be out with a season-long injury. I would perform better than those under-rotating, over-hairspraying robots, and I had never even trained.

Needless to say, Alice was the only one going through with softball.

First there was the informational meeting. I was happy to see Emma Jane and Megan there. At least I wouldn't be alone. The coach did some blabbing about the school's gymnastics record. The team had always been regional champions, but not state. Now, luckily for them, they had me. We were looking at nationals for the next three years.

Then came the first few practices.

Coach Mackenzie automatically saw my skill and my ability to quickly memorize a routine. She almost instantly gave me routines that most gymnasts would rather die than perform. She let me work on them for a couple practices, and then set me to work connecting everyone else's mistakes. I'd never been trained, but I knew exactly what they were doing wrong.

I was quick to notice that Emma Jane and Megan were never told to come see me for help. One practice while I was "taking a break," I watched them closely. If I didn't know better, I would have thought they were vampires, too. Their grace was almost flawless and they flew with a weightlessness matched only by myself. It was rather shocking, considering that during the school hours, both of them were clumsier than Bella had used to be.

I caught up with them after practice one day. I had to know how high school freshmen could be that good without their hearts no longer beating.

"Hey, guys, wait up," I faked. Like they would have to wait for me.

"Hey, Rose," Emma Jane greeted.

"Damn, girl, you've got moves. How did you get so good?" Megan pressed. Shit. I had to think fast. I hadn't come up with my gymnastics backstory, yet.

"My aunt was a world champion gymnast from forever ago," I fibbed. "She's been coaching me since I was three. Now she jokes that I could coach her," I added with a laugh.

"That is lagite!" the twins said in unison.

"What about you guys? I've never been told to correct either of you, yet," I asked.

"Our parents coach at Univeristy of Colorado," Emma Jane explained.

"That's amazing! You're probably gonna get full rides, then, huh?" I wondered.

"Yeah, the perks are cool, but our parents are gone competing a lot and we have to stay with our aunt," Megan told me.

"Her house smells," Emma Jane complained.

"I could always ask Carlise if you guys could stay with us when they're gone. Ask Emma Jane, the house is huge. We have multiple guest rooms and if you stay for any length of time, you'll be able to meet Bella's real dad. Plus, Evalyn loves you guys. I'm sure we could work something out," I offered.

"Are you sure?" Megan confirmed. "Alice said something about it being hard to feed seven kids."

"Correction," I reminded her, "Alice said she wondered why they insisted on paying for lunch when we don't eat it. Trust me, we have more than enough money," I assured them.

I came back the next day with good news: as long as their parents were okay with it, they could stay over whenever they wanted. The only downfall was that when they came over, it would be a lot harder to cough our food up without them noticing.

Track wasn't working out that well for Edward and Bella. For the school it was great. The coaches loved Bella's ability to pole-vault, high-jump and shot-put (a good vampire pitching arm helps with that). They like to hog Edward for the running events. Together, Edward and Bella were landing the school back-to-back victories, but there was a little in-team complication.

Andrew had this absene obsession with outshining Edward. He often attempted to injure Edward in some way. Trying to trip him while running alongside him was his favorite strategy. Edward was slowly losing his mind. Apparently Andrew had more vivid fantasies about himself and Bella than Jacob ever had. Forget slowly losing his mind, Edwrd was going crazy, and fast.

"We have to derail this guy," Alice announced.

"Thank you queen of obvious," Bella lashed.

"What haven't we done?" Edward asked. "We've sent Emmett on him, I've stranded him in Montana, we've smashed a tennis racket on his head, just about beat him to a pulp, and Bella's been projecting a lot of stuff into his mind..."

"Maybe we should continue with that," Emmet suggested. "Maybe she just hasn't been projecting the right thing."

"I have the best idea in the world!" Alice exclaimed. "Megan's Andrew's ex-girlfriend, right? Every relationship has ways of haunting you when it ends. Rosalie, Bella and Edwrd know that best. What if we found some way to haunt him with something, something that only Megan would know."

"Why would that help?" Jasper wondered.

"I don't know. She said that she hated him now, so he obviously did something. I think Emmett's right, though. Maybe the images Bella's been sending him are making him just fight harder," she theorized.

Unfortunately, according to Megan, there was no one thing that Andrew had done, she just hated him because he was a jerk in general. She did, however have dirt.

"We did one of those 'I tell my secrets, you tell yours,' right? He said that he walked in on his parents once. Apparently it was one of the grossest things he'd ver seen, but I think whatever stares back at him when he looks in the mirror is worse," she had told us.

"You have to make it look natural, though," I reminded Bella when her and Edward began planning Andrew's demise. "Wait until he has one of his fantasies, then project something with you and Edward like - um - he walks in on you and Edward making out in closet or something. Then send a thought like 'oh shit that's almost like when I walked in on my parents.' He'll remember, you can capture that image from his mind, and you can use that process every time, skipping the 'oh shit' part because once that connection is made, he doesn't have to 'remind himself.' Eventually that will become his thought pattern. Every time he thinks about getting together with you, it'll flash to him walking in on you and Edward, and then the image of his parents," I hypothesized.

"Rose, Alice, you two are geniouses," Bella thanked.


	20. Emmett Cullen: Caught

Emmett Cullen

Chapter 20: Caught

It was one thing to fool Evalyn. Emma Jane was a little difficult, but Megan...that was a completely different situation. Emma Jane was dismissive, so even if she was curious, when she didn't get answers, she let it go. But Megan wondered about everything. It wasn't as bad as it had used to be. She understood the need to be gracious that we were letting them stay, but she still had a lot of questions.

Why didn't we ever have second helpings when Edward's cooking was so good? Why did we always go upstairs just to "use the restroom" when there were perfectly good toilets downstairs? She was impressed with our music library, but of course she wondered how we had the time to find so many artists that we enjoyed enough to purchase their music.

It became obvious that we were going to have to watch ourselves around them. We used Bella to communicate across the room anything that would be lightly implicit as to what we were. It began to annoy her.

It was amazing how easily Evalyn had Emma Jane and Megan wrapped around her fingers. At least Evalyn could distract the rest of them for little bits at a time.

The worst part was that we had to completely rearrange the house every time they came and left. We were "high-schoolers." It already looked bad enough that three teenage couples lived under the same roof, but the same bedrooms would be a little to awkward for even Emma Jane and Megan, who were used to somewhat abnormal stuff. it confused Evalyn. We just told her that we were experimenting with furniture and rooming arrangements.

It hadn't been as bad when Emma Jane had used to come over all the time. Rarely did she spend the night, and we never went upstairs with her before, nothing had ever needed to be rearranged.

And of course we would switch everything back when Emma Jane and Megan left. Like we could stay apart from each other!

Emma Jane and Megan were downstairs watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was the only Harry Potter movie that we owned. The only reason that we even had it was to laugh at their interpretation of werewolves. That's why we had a lot of vampire movies, as well. The non-mythical parts of the movies made us laugh at how much humans were controlled by their hormones. Entertainment all around.

We all slowly filled the room slowly as Lupin's transformation drew closer.

Bella tossed me a bag of chips.

_Why me? You always make me snack, _I complained. _Make your husband eat something this time._

_He ate a lot in front of Charlie,_ Bella thought towards me.

_You liar, _I called her bluff. _He talked about every moment with you back then. If he ate anything, we would have heard about it._

_Damn it, _she cursed. _What about the pizza?_

I was amazed that she remembered that far into her human past.

_We were there for that one, remember?_

_Well, anyway, you're the biggest, therefore, you should have the bigger appetite._

I finally opened the bad and glared at her until the last chip had been devoured.

"Damn, Emmett. You sure do eat a lot," Megan noted.

_See, _I commented to Bella.

_Don't push it. She's just stopped questioning our lack of second helpings. At least she's only commenting now, and not interrogating, _she replied.

"I'm gonna go check my myspace," I told them when the movie was over. A perfectly casual excuse for this day and age. For more than half a decade, myspace had been a huge had. I had to get these chips out, and myspace was a good escape.

"Can I come, too?" Evalyn asked in her almost-too-cute-to-refuse begging voice.

"No. You wouldn't have fun. I'm just reading things and then writing things." And barfing my guts out.

"Reading and writing? Yuckie. I can't do those," Evalyn agreed.

It was amazing how connected she had become with us. If we didn't adopt her soon, the social service system would take her back. Every year a foster child's chances of adoption dwindles. The state would probably want her to be placed in a home that would adopt her rather than stick with families until adoption no longer appeals to them. We never wanted to press the subject onto Carlisle, though. We respected him and only hoped that he knew when he was going to make everything final. We all loved Evalyn and there would be nothing that could change that. When our hearts are changed, they're changed permanently, and we all had our hearts set on Evalyn.

I flushed the toilet after my food disposal, and opened the door to find Megan.

"What the hell are you doing in my room?" I asked her.

"Do you always throw up your afternoon snacks?" she questioned.

"No, I think that was a bad bag of chips. I should probably dig up that bag and look at the expiration date," I lied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I would like to check my myspace in privacy," I requested, heading for my computer.

"Nice try. I know you don't have one," she told me. "After camping with you guys, I tried to find you all. Only Alice and Bella have ones. When I couldn't find everyone elses, I asked around the sports teams that you guys had been on, and they said that you told them you didn't have one."

"Okay, so I didn't exactly want everyone to know that I felt a little nauseous. My puking is not something that I enjoy making public," I tried again. "Would you mind not trying to analyze everything? You might find life a little more enjoyable if you just let things be the way they are and not question anything."

"How am I supposed to know how things really are, though? You admitted it yourself that you lied about the myspace. How am I supposed to know when I'm being lied to?" she wondered. She had a point there.

"Trust me, most of the time, I will never lie to you. But, being a guy," _and vampire _I added to myself, "who is not entitled by any law to constantly tell you the truth, I exercise my right to lie to you if I don't exactly want you to know what I am doing. It's just as bad to pry as it is to lie," I told her, not knowing myself if that was even true.

"Whatever," she finally said, dismissing the subject in a manner that reminded me a lot of Emma Jane, but Emma Jane would have dismissed it sooner. She turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

When I went back downstairs, Bella and Edward were locked in an epic search for our cars on the everyday streets. Now that we were in a big city, our house was right by a local road, instead of having a long private driveway.

Bella had made this big point about how we weren't as inconspicuous as we thought we were. She used our cars as an example. Even a Volvo wasn't as popular as some of them out there.

Edward had a pad and a pencil and they would tally each time they saw a car that we owned: silver Volvo, black Mercedes, blue Audi, red M3, red Jeep, yellow Porsche. all of them. The Aston Martin that Edward owned and the Ferrari that he had given Bella were the hardest to find, along with Rosalie's M3 and Alice's Porsche. It was a lot easier to find Audis and Volvos in a bigger city like this, but Carlisle's car was still the most common, and every once and a while, you would still see a heavy duty jeep.

Suddenly Bella burst into laughter. Edward stared at her. Obviously she was keeping him out. His look was one of pure confusion.

She read the confusion in his face and looked him square in the eye.

"I just noticed that some semi-trucks are made me Volvo. That's a disgrace...you don't see any Audi semi-trucks!" she exclaimed. Edward could never hate or dislike Bella in anyway, but he definitely was NOT happy that she had just called his car as unequal to his.

Author's note: Sorry again for the wait and thanks again for your endless patience with me! Just to let you know, I actually have done the Cullen Car hunt, and the results in this story are the ones that I found. No matter where you go (trust me, I do this on all trips that I go on), Carlisle's car is always the most common, Alice's is nearly impossible to find, unless you pass a Porsche dealership (though that's cheating), and Rosalie's isn't much better. You actually do see quite a few junky red Volkswagen rabbits though, which I thought was odd. It took me a while to find one, but ever since I did they just keep coming. My friend is already helping me with the next chapter, so I promise it won't take me as long to update next time!


	21. Emma Jane Sanders: Costume Party

**Author note: This chapter was written by the inspiration of the character Emma Jane, who happens to have the same name. Hope you enjoy Emma Jane's creation. Oh, and for reference, Ily is Emma Jane's nickname for Megan, which will be explained in future chapters.**

* * *

Emma Jane Sanders

Chapter 21 - Costume Party

Ugh. Bleck. I'm having sleep issues. Seriously, lately I've been going to sleep late and then walking up almost every hour! And then, oh and _then, _I wake up thirteen minutes before my alarm goes off. This is ridiculous. I'm starting to look like my favorite friends; Y'know, pale, purple sleep bruises? yup. It kind of sucks, but I still end up really happy at school. Well, with my friends and Ily there. I'm not sure what it is, personally I blame Sleep Insanity (where you go crazy from lack of sleep), but I get pretty hyper and giggly.

Anyway, this is one of those sucky mornings where I get up an hour earlier than my alram. One second I'm dreaming and then the next I'm completely awake with my eyes still closed. My room was silent except for whatever was outside my window. I groaned at the lack of music from my radio-alarm clock.

I opened my eyes to look at my clocked and I croaked "Ew" at it. No one should have to wake up too early for school. I wouldn't wish this on anyone but Andrew.

Now, I'm a pretty likeable person. I'm fairly happy all the time, I'm adorable, I'm short, and that makes people want to pick me up for sone reason, and I don't usually hate people. But Andrew? he's such a douche and there are just so many reasons for me hate him, especially since he's been trying so hard to get into Bella's pants ever since she and her siblings got here. So figging annoying! Plus he went out with Ily and that didn't exactly end well.

Being Ily's sister means that we share a connection, which is pretty fascinating to me, so I looked up other twin circumstances at one point of my laptop. But besides that connection she talks to me a lot. We share pretty much everything. She doesn't even need to tell me that she's suspicious of the Cullens and Hales. I can practically feel her suspicion wafting off of her at times. It kind of makes me want to start laughing. Me, I'm not one to judge. Much. They'll tell us if they want to. I can wait. Not so sure about Ily, though.

I sat up after staring at the clock for a few minutes and then got out of bed. Sometimes it's weird to get up and not have Ily in my, formerly our, room. However there is that little fact that sometimes we're way different and clash a bit. Plus we've accumulated so much stuff that we require our own rooms. I tried not to trip over anything on my floor while I found the light switch and flipped it. I scrunched up my face, closing my eyes at the light while my eyes adjusted. I didn't feel like getting dressed quite yet, so in black shorts and a grey wife beater, I went out to find the kitchen. I flipped light switches as I went.

As I passed one of the couches in the living room, I picked up my book from a cushion and continued on to the kitchen, yawning and opening the book as I went. I sat at the dining table to read my book, a copy of all of the _Lord of the Ring _bookes in one.

When Ily came into the kitchen looking sleepy and squinting at me, I knew that it was around six in the morning.

"Wha...are ya doin' up, Em...Ja...?" Ily yawned, rubbing her eyes. She was in her pajames as well.

I grinned and told her, "I woke up."

She didn't need any more explanation than that so she nodded sleepily before rummaging in cupboards and the fridge for breakfast. She brought back a bowl of cereal for herself and strawberry PopTarts for me.

"Thank you, Ily," I smiled widely at my sister before ripping the packaging open to get my food.

She replied with "Mngrbmng" which I took to mean "I'm too tired to reply properly, but you're welcome, little sister."

When we got to school, we went our seperate ways, different people calling our names. We grinned at each other for a moment and then went to our friends and later, our classes.

We didn't have any classes together since Ily didn't take any advanced classes and I did. Except for History. I'm not so fond of learning dates and what dead old white guys had to say or what they did, so why take Pre-AP World History? That's just more work on something I sorely don't want to do in the first place.

I made it through my morning classes and then fast walked to my locker to switch books and then head to lunch. I loved lunch. i like to eat, even though I don't have much of an appetite sometimes, and I like to be able to hang out with my sister and see many of my friends.

I had gotten my food, a mini pizza and a bottle of strawberry-kiwi juice, and was about to sit down at a table with some of my old friends from elementary and middle school and their friends when I heard Bella call my name. "Mrah?" I turned to look at her.

Bella, well, glided across the cafeteria floor between people and tables expertly to stand beside me. It still amazed me that she could do that. But then again, her whole family was just as graceful, if not more so in the case of Alice. I always felt pretty graceless and extra klutzy with them around. But they definitely made up for it by catching me when I actually fell. Except for gymnastics. That's one of the only physical things I can really do without messin up too horribly, or at all.

Even when Bella was just standing beside me, I could smell her. She always smelled really good, and that made me wonder sometimes, especially since the rest of the Cullens and Hales smelled just as good.

Bella annonced politely to my friends that she was stealing me, that I would be able to sit with them tomorrow, and that she had something to tell me. She sounded kind of excited about it, too. As we walked - or in her case, glided, I stumbled a little - to her table she said, "Alice already got Megan, and with you we have everyone!"

"Okay?" It came out as more of a question because I was curious. I spotted Ily sitting next to Alice, and the two of us locked eyes. I gave her a curious look, tipping my head to the right in question. Ily just grinned in response. I sighed. She already knew. Of course. Alice probably just couldn't resist telling her. That made me the one out of the loop.

When I was finally situated between my sister and Bella, I glared all around the table at their happy, beautiful faces. Bella and Edward twitched a little at my glare. Emmett just grinned wider. Rose giggled with Alice while Ily laughed and Jasper chuckled. Growing impatient, I started bouncing around in my seat a little and whined, "C'mon, please-please-please?"

Ily rolled her eyes at me while laughing before smirking at me and saying, "Two words, Emma Jane; costume party."

My whole face must have lit up because when I hugged my sister, Bella, Alice and possibly Rose were all like, "Awwwww."

"Alright, alright! Get off!" Ily pushed me a little to make me let go, which I did, and then continued, "Holy mother of peanut butter and cookies, Em! I didn't think that you'd get _that _excited about it!"

I made a pouty face. "But, but, I get to wear a costume and it's not even _Halloween_! you know I love Halloween and costumes together _and _apart!"

"Yeah, I know, Emma Jane, but seriously, if you don't stop squealing then I will be forced to break out the duct tape. And possibly the flying monkeys." Ha the monkeys. A little inside joke between the two of us.

I deflated and stuck my tongue out at Ily with my arms crossed.

She gave me a look that vaguely reminded me of a satisfied cat and said shortly, "Thank you."

I just huffed at her and when I was about to ask when and where the costume party would be, Edward interrupted with an answer to my unasked questions. he and Bella seemed to do that a lot. Edward mostly. They just knew things. Edward leaned forward with his arms crossed on the table with a smile. His eyes flickered around to all of our faces while he spoke. "We are hosting the costume party on Friday. And yes, it was Alice's doing. She likes the idea of being able to choose costumes for all of us."

I glanced over at Alice, who nodded and grinned mischievously.

"I'm going to be Dracula!" Emmett announced happily. He and Jasper started snickering. Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head at her boyfriend. I noticed that Ily gave him a weird look before speaking.

"I still think that you should be a teddy bear, Emmett." Ily raised an eyebrow at the large...boy-man-thing. This earned snickers from everyone at the table. Bella, between laughs, informed me that Evalyn also thought that she should dress up as a teddy bear for the party even though she kind of wouldn't be there to see it. Esme was going to take Evalyn out while we partied. However, apparently we needed _some _sort of parental supervision, so Carlisle was going to oversee the party.

For the rest of lunch, we talked about costume ideas. Alice dominated the conversation by giving me and Ily suggestions every thirty seconds and describing a few details of her siblings' costumes. The eight of us left the cafeteria smiling. I called my usual "See you in English, Bella!" behind me as our group went in pairs in seperate directions.

By the time I got to English I was exhausted. Being away from my closer friends makes me extremely sleep and I just lose all my energy. I'm assuming that Bella noticed that I looked "kind of, I dunno dead." At least, that's how she voiced it. "Emma Jane? Are you okay? You looke kind of, I dunno, dead." It amazed me how she could contort her face into concern that way and still look beautiful. Just like always.

I sighed and told her, "I'm okay. Just really sleepy." I suddenly hung my head, closed my eyes, and pretended to snore. I heard Bella giggle and looked up at her. "See?"

She laughed again, shaking her head slightly. "Alright. Just get more sleep, Emma Jane. And don't forget that we're kidnapping you and Megan after the party. Bring whatever you want for sleeping over."

I nodded, smiling, as the starting bell rang and our teacher started roll call.


	22. Megan Sanders: The Energizer Bunny

Megan Sanders

Chapter 22 - The Fucking Energizer Bunny

"Mother of FUCK!" I exclaimed. My camera's power light blinked in a way that only meant one thing: dead batteries. Alice muffled a giggle. She always seemed to know when things would go wrong, and her giggle made it seem as if she knew this had been coming. I wondered if she had changed the batteries herself, give everyone a good laugh. But Alice wouldn't do something like that...unless it was someone like Andrew. The creep.

"Didn't you just put those batteries in this morning?" Emma Jane asked.

"Yeah. And I took all of maybe two pictures. Energizer sucks," I commented.

Everyone at the table laughed at the irony. It was ironic because I had willingly agreed to let Alice dress me as the Energizer Bunny for the party. I still wanted to wear big fat sunglasses and humongous bunny ears and the rest of the costume that marked me as a can of boundless energy. I just didn't want to really promote the batteries' use.

Alice was always prepared.

"I have a whole pack of Duracell with me. If you want it, you can have it. I have a bunch more at home, so don't worry about leaving me without batteries," she offered, pulling the pack out of her purse and handing it to me.

I took the pack graciously.

"Thanks," I told her.

"Are you still coming over tonight?" Alice wondered.

"Of course. I wouldn't miss a good prick and prod for the world," I replied sarcastically.

I was, of course, referring to a costume alteration that we had planned for this evening.

"Hey! I am always completely accurate. There will be no stabbing you with pins. I can't exactly say the same for your outfit, however," she joked.

That didn't stop me from not being thrilled about standing up for nearly an hour and a half while Alice messed around with my costume. I just couldn't stand still the way the Cullens and the Hales could. I don't know if everyone else noticed, but they could pretty much be statues at times. Standing there with Alice working on my outfit, I could tell that she kind of expected me to be as still as they were.

"Stop moving around! Do you want to look like the fat bunny on TV, or a cute bunny who could be his cousin?" she snapped, miraculously still sounding friendly. I felt the tensions in the fabric as it moved along my skin in the direction that Alice was pulling.

"How much do you have left?" I whined.

"Not much, I promise," Alice assured me.

"How long have you been doing this kind of thing? Sewing and stuff, I mean. Most teenagers aren't into this kind of stuff," I casually brought up. I wasn't going to just give up on my curiosities. There was too much different with my friends that had been left unexplained. Why didn't they just get it over with? I wasn't going anywhere, and neither were Emma Jane and the rest of their friends. Lately, curiosity had become concern.

"I can't remember. Esme got me started on knitting, but that bored me, so she taught me a bunch of stuff. Rosalie sometimes helps with the designing. You know how she likes fashion," she explained.

"How did you become so good at it? Your probably better at this than most high-end fashion designers," I complimented.

"Thanks. It's just practice. As you can clearly see with my excitement over making everyone's costumes, I love doing this kind of thing. Really, any aspect of a party. I'm also doing the decorating for the party. The only part I don't like to do is the food. Edward likes to do that part," she further detailed.

"Yeah, about that. Why don't you guys eat that much. All of you are doing some sort of sport. And I know that Rosalie can't be on any sports-induced diet because Emma Jane and I are on her gymnastics team, and we don't have a weird diet. Burning calories requires more food. And Edward cooks amazing food. I know that even if I was on a diet, I would break it for the food over here."

"Just personal preferance, I guess," she replied. "Plus, Carlisle's a doctor. If we're doing anything unhealty, he'll make us change it."

By the time Alice dropped me off in her yellow Porsche (I had even asked about how they had so much money and all she said was that they had strange luck with buying and selling stocks), I still hadn't gained any understanding to the Cullens' weird behavior. I had no reason to believe that any of them were lying, but nothing really fit.

Part of my costume had to be a drum, so as soon as I got in my bedroom, I went to my closet and pulled out my cousin's broken snare. He had lent it to me, saying he would get it fixed when I was done with it. I dinked around with it until I had finally converted it into a container, with a top like a tissue box.

I went downstairs to the laundry room. There, on a shelf, sat a box of Energizer batteries. I grabbed it and headed back upstairs. Back in my room, I dumped the batteries through the whole in the top of the drum. My costume was now pretty much complete. I felt kind of bad for planning to give the batteries to people who may not know how much Energizer sucks ass, but hey, I was going to give them out for free. What did they have to lose? They gained maybe two pictures with their digital cameras.

I had been so wrapped up in my own little world, that the knock on my doorframe startled me. Emma Jane was standing in the open doorway. I could almost see the little suppressed giggle that I knew she wanted to let loose.

"Ily, Dad wants to work with us on the tramp," she announced.

I stood up and followed her down the stairs. I wondered how much Emma Jane knew about the Cullens. After everything Alice had said today, I actually had begun to get a little scared. Alice's answers were almost instantaneous. If she was lying, she was either really good at improvising, or they had this whole back story to counter whatever was going wrong. Things have to get really bad in order to have a back story.

One cool thing about being daughters of college gymnastics coaches, some things were brought home. For instance, the two giant gymnastics trampolines that were installed in our backyard. We also had a beam with mats around it in our parent's home gym.

As Emma Jane mounted hers, I lingered on the ground, waiting for the first question to word itself in my head. Then my dad ordered me (kindly and fatherly) to get on my tramp and practice. As I climbed on, I decided which inquiry to bring up first. My first question came out breathy.

"Do you ever notice the weirder things about the Cullens?" I asked. That was a little vague, but I was concentrating on my rotations in the air now. Conversations tend to slip to the back burner when you're trying not to kill yourself. I really didn't want to land on the tramp wrong and send myself flying into the backyard fence.

"Doesn't everyone," Emma Jane replied, breathless in her exercise.

"I mean the stranger things. Bella and Edward, especially Edward, seem to always know what you're thinking. Alice is prepared for anything that can go wrong, and whenever Jasper's around, I can't even work up to suspicious. Just curious, like he surpresses something on me or something like that," I elaborated, which took a lot in my effort not to go flying across the yard because of wrong footing.

"Yeah, I have wondered. But there isn't much that's impossible. I mean, some people are just good at reading others. Maybe that's what Bella and Edward can do. Maybe that's what finally drew them together. I mean they're nearly completely different. Bella being down to earth and Edward kind of leaning towards the dramatic side...maybe knowing exactly what's on the other's mind helps them connect. And premonition is out there. Just because Alice has some weird notion of when things'll happen, that doesn't make her a freak," Emma Jane theorized. Then she continued, "And then there are people who just have a calming affect. People who, when you're around them, seem to just take all of your worries away. Maybe Jasper's like that."

This was why I loved my sister. She never thought bad of anybody for any reason. Even if you were one of the biggest freaks on the planet, she still found some excuse to say that you were normal. Maybe she was right, though. I always thought the opposite, that everyone was up to something, even myself. For once, I could be wrong about them. Maybe the Cullens _didn't _have anything to hide. I definitely wasn't going to let my guard down, regardless.

"Not quite so high, Megan. Tone down the energy a little. Don't want you flying all over the place," my dad called to me.

The Energizer Bunny strikes again.


	23. Emma Jane Sanders: Cookie Dough

Emma Jane Sanders

Chapter 23 - What Happens When Little Girls Want Cookie Dough

Friday arrived slowly for me. I wasn't exactly sleeping too much more than usual. I was still sleepy throughout the days but then Friday night arrived and suddenly I was extremely excited. I was almost literally bouncing off the walls at home while I packed my messenger bag and put on my costume. I bounded out of my room to meet Ily in the living room.

I pretty much tripped into the room, falling flat on my ass, of course. "Ow," I said, glaring at the floor. I felt Ily staring at me, so I looked up from my position on the carpet and grinned up at her. "Hiya!"

She grinned back and responded with, "Heya!" We both laughed while she helped me up.

I looked her over. Underneath her black jacket, she sported a pink top custom-made by Alice. Below that, she wore a pink plaid skirt accompanied by a slightly darker pink checkered belt stung on which was our cousin's broken drum. The pink was finished off with a pair of pink tights and pink converse. She glance over the top of her fat sunglasses andsaw me looking over her costume. She turned to the side (giving the classic butt-shelf) to show me that she also had a fluffy bunny tail sewn to the back of her skirt. She was grinning widely at me, expecting some kind of response.

"Alice is completely made of awesome!" I cheered.

"Yup, definitely."

I laughed. "Haha! Energizer Bunny!"

"I'll be giving away these shit batteries for free. Like the Easter Bunny, but batteries." Then Ily grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of the house. "Alright, Little Miss Pixie, let's go!"

I looked around at my mostly green and black ensemble. It was black Converse with neon green laces, black and forest green striped leggings, a skirt that was made of a few different types of ripped fabrics in varying shades of green, a black t-shirt with dark green fishnet, white and green striped arm warmers (made from knee socks), a light green zip up jacket, and a pair of small blue-green wings. I looked back up at Ily, concerned. "Was it that obvious?"

Ily frowned playfully at me and said, "Uh, yeah!"

We arrived an hour and a half early on purpose, hoping that we could help with last-minute setting up of stuff. But of course everything was already set up so we had nothing much to do except put our stuff into our room and then let Alice re-do our makeup and hair. We had a blast and Alice bombarded me with sparkles. I breathed some in at one point. Ew. Ily started laughing at me when I started choking on shiny silvery sparkles. I glared at her. She laughed even harder. She was the only one who found my death glare funny. Something must have been wrong with her brain.

While Alice was snipping away at my hair to make it more pixie like she suddenly piped up, "Hey, I've been wondering…" She locked eyes with me in the mirror. "Why do you call Megan 'Ily,' anyway?"

"Huh? Oh! Did we never explain this?" Ily perked up a little, diverting Alice's attention to herself. "It's 'cause my full name –"

"- is Megan Emily Sanders," we chorused.

"I've called her 'Ily' since we were little. Just a simple nickname out of the last three letters of her middle name," I explained.

"Plus, between both of our names, there was an Emma and an Emily. My name was the only one with an 'ily'," Ily further detailed.

Alice nodded thoughtfully and went back to my hair.

The three of us went back downstairs and I managed to kick Jasper off of the computer in order to show everyone a website that I really liked simply because it had music by my favorite Korean ska band.

"So this is the kind of music you like?" Bella wondered aloud. I nodded enthusiastically.

"I'm eclectic this way. I like random foreign music." Bella nodded thoughtfully and exchanged a look with Edward. They smiled at the exact same time. I felt, rather than saw, Ily give the two an odd look while suspicion wafted.

The doorbell rang at that point and suddenly Emmett and Rose had turned on the stereo system, Jasper was putting the computer away, and Alice went to greet the party-goers. It turned out that a lot of people from school, some we knew and some we didn't, had heard about the costume party and came in many different costumes.

Which reminds me… Alice was a ballerina in a tutu of dark colors that definitely fit the way she moved. Emmett was indeed dressed up as Dracula with his high-collared cape. Rose was dressed as an undead bride I think. She was still extremely beautiful but she was all, like, um, dead looking. Jasper was decked out in what looked like Civil War fatigues. Edward looked like a pompous bonebag a.k.a. olde time gentleman. Lastly, Bella was wearing a typical schoolgirl uniform. Y'know, white blouse, plaid skirt? Carlisle wasn't dressed up as anything since he was our parental supervision. He looked so young that he needed to stand out _somehow_.

We, as in Ily and I, mingled and danced clumsily with people we knew and stuff. It was fun. Someone tried and failed to spike the punch because Alice stopped the guy. I think it might have been Andrew but I couldn't know. I hadn't seen it. As I was talking to an old guy friend from middle school I suddenly had an idea and so excused myself and rushed upstairs.

I grabbed some money (about ten dollars) from my wallet and shoved that down into my bra. I didn't have any pockets on my person. When I exited my and Ily's room Bella was waiting outside in the hallway.

"You disappeared from the dance floor," Bella told me before I could begin to ask what she was doing. I nodded absentmindedly. "So what are you doing, Emma Jane?"

"Getting ready to drop by the grocery store for some very important sleep over ingredients," I replied innocently. Well, it was pretty innocent, actually. I just wanted to go get cookie dough. And I knew that I couldn't tell Ily because she would just horde it all on the way back to the house...and we would end up buying too much. Going alone was essential in order to get the deliciousness known as cookie dough.

Bella laughed and nodded. "Okay, Emma Jane, but just be safe, alright? You never know who's lurking in the dark."

"Yeah, yeah, don't go all Esme on me, Bella!"

I made it to the store in one piece, bought as much cookie dough as I could with my ten dollars, and then headed back to the party.

On the way, however, I heard a noise coming from between two buildings. It sounded weird, like slurping I think. My eyebrows knitted together and I got a slightly queasy feeling in my stomach. As I passed the alleyway I looked into it and stopped dead.

My stopping wasn't the only dead thing. The girl in the alley was as well. From what I could tell anyway. There was so much blood, and a guy crouched about her, looking like he was nuzzling her neck. I could see part of his face. It had blood on it and I could see how very pale his skin was; luminescent in the scattered moonlight. His eyes were open and concentrated solely on the dead girl he was sucking dry. His eyes were a bright crimson, scaring me nine tenths to death.

I gasped sharply and quietly backed away from the alley, hoping that the vampire wouldn't see me or anything. I walked backwards the whole way until I found another alley. I think I dropped my bag of cookie dough on the way. I hit a wall beside a metal trash can and slid down, tears already sliding down my cheeks, completely ruining Alice's artistry. I curled myself up so that I was as small as I could get. And that was pretty damn small.

_Vampire! Oh, God I don't want to die…not like that. I don't want to die. Vampire, vampire. So much blood. She's dead. It killed her. Am I gonna die? I don't want to. Not like that. Drained dry? Vampire. Oh, God… Please no…_ _Help me… Please, someone, help. Vampires. So much blood. Help, please. She's dead. Vampire killed her. Help._

Only minutes later because of all of my fright and confusion I thought that I heard the voices of angels. I was shaking so hard and repeating the same thoughts over and over; _More vampires. She's dead. I don't want to die that way. Too much blood. Red eyes. Help. _I even started mumbling my scattered thoughts.

The only thing that the voices were saying that I could recognize was my name.

"…Emma Jane…?"

"Emma Jane!"

I didn't recognize them, but it was Edward and Bella. While I was shaking and silently sobbing Bella picked me up and cradled me to her chest protectively. She whispered assurances to me that I was fine and that everything was okay. I couldn't comprehend anything. Everything was inconsistent buzzing to me.

Bella was so cold. Freezing. If I had been shaking before, now I was like a little earthquake. My mumblings got louder. She and Edward took me back to their house-mansion-castle-thing. Emmett and Carlisle caught up with the three of us at their home and we entered the house. I don't think that Bella would have let me go if it hadn't been for Ily demanding that Bella put me down.

Ily held me instead. She was warm. The family was in a wide and very loose circle around us. Ily glared around at each of them. She was so pissed off and scared. What had happened in the house that would make Ily so mad? I was still mumbling about vampires and the dead girl.

"What the _hell_ is going on? What happened to my little sister?! What the fuck _are you_?"


	24. Jasper Hale: Exposure

Jasper Hale

Chapter 24 - Exposure

I saw that look on Alice's face. I felt her tension.

It wasn't just a vision look; it was a bad vision look. And her fear was almost greater than I had ever felt from her at one time.

Before I could even reach her, Alice moved to the stereo and switched it off.

"I'm extremely sorry, we, um, we seem to have a bit of a problem. A…um…family emergency. I regret to tell you that you all have to go home now, or crash at another house or something. Our family has to deal with…something…private," she announced to the crowd of people in our house.

This was definitely bad. Alice never had a problem improvising lies, but the only thing she hadn't stuttered on was "you all have to go home now." That was the only thing she was sure of at the moment. If she had been thinking clearly, she would have said that the neighbors were complaining, now that we actually had neighbors. But her thoughts were clouded by some horrific realization of the future.

I turned my head to Edward. His faced was panicked, paler than before, which was pretty darn pale considering the fact that we hadn't hunted in a while. His fright was almost worse than Alice's. Actually, it probably _was _worse, considering he not only saw her vision in his head, but also heard her thoughts. With his expression, I knew that Bella would have dipped into his mind by now. I called out to her mentally.

_What's happened? Or going to happen? _I asked her.

_The same thing that happened last time. She saw one coming, but not so fast, like with me before…only Emma Jane doesn't know what we are,_ she replied.

Instantly I remembered that day in the baseball field when Bella was still human. She knew what we were. So when James had come hunting her, as scared as she was, it would have been worse not knowing what her pursuer was after.

Bella sent me the vision that Alice had had. It was through Emma Jane's eyes. Watching him feed off of an innocent girl. Emma Jane ran, dropping a bag of some sort, curling up against the wall in terror.

Alice's vision must not have been that far ahead when it came to her. It must have already passed, because Bella also projected Emma Jane's thoughts to me. Which wouldn't have been possible from a future perspective.

_Vampire! Oh, God I don't want to die…not like that. I don't want to die. Vampire, vampire. So much blood. She's dead. It killed her. Am I gonna die? I don't want to. Not like that. Drained dry? Vampire. Oh, God… Please no… Help me… Please, someone, help. Vampires. So much blood. Help, please. She's dead. Vampire killed her. Help._

_Tell Carlisle, _I commanded, _NOW!_

She must have, considering the speed in which Carlisle was now at my side. He thought instructions to Edward and Bella, which was necessary due to the few remaining teenagers that Alice was pushing out the door. The two nodded.

"Emmett! Get over here!" Bella called, fear in her voice, or maybe I just imagined it, since I was feeling the worry. Worry that wasn't misplaced. "You and Carlisle are coming with me and Edward," she demanded. "We're going to get Emma Jane. Alice, hurry up and get those people out of here! Rose, call Esme and tell her to keep Evalyn away until we get this settled. And Jasper…keep Megan calm and keep the guests from coming back!"

"Hey!" Megan shouted. "What's going on?! What about my sister?! HEY!"

Rose didn't even censor her fingers' speed while she dialed Esme. Alice exercised a slight amount of inhuman force to push the last of our stubborn visitors out the door. I focused on calming Megan down.

"Stop that, dude. I know what you're trying to do. There's something funky with you guys. I'm not going to let you sink me into some artificial numbness while something's wrong with my sister that I don't even know about!" she cried. I almost thought I saw a tear.

Megan wasn't that much of an emotional person. We never saw (or in my case felt) any feeling come from her that wasn't annoyed or neutral or at least somewhat satisfied. Feeling the concern she felt for her sister and the worry of the situation, it was definitely awakening. She wasn't just the prying girl that sometimes annoyed the hell out of us, despite her amusing uniqueness. She was a sister, a caretaker, a devoted friend. She was all three for Emma Jane. For once she was feeling healthier emotions for a human to be feeling. Who was I to mess with that?

And it wasn't like calming her down was going to help anyone but her anyway. From the looks of things, in a matter of minutes, or maybe even seconds depending on how long it took the traveling party, the charade might be over. At least between us and the twins. Mixing her emotions would only make her angrier, and that would not help us in the least if our secret _was _coming out tonight.

Edward opened the door a few minutes later, holding it for Bella as she carried Emma Jane into the house. Emma Jane was demanding and struggling to be put down. Now that she was safe inside, Bella finally agreed. Emma Jane stumbled to her sister, falling into Megan's protective arms.

As Megan hugged Emma Jane close to her, she glared at all of us. I could feel determination crawling all over her. She was going to pry an answer from us tonight, no matter what it took.

"What the _hell_ is going on? What happened to my little sister?! What the fuck _are you_?"

There was a silence in the room as no one knew how to answer. It had been really awkward for Bella to just come out and say "Hey dad, guess what, I'm a vampire!" It had been a lot easier for Edward when Bella had been told by Jacob. Edward hadn't had to confess to anything. That gave me a brilliant idea. Maybe we didn't have to say anything about what we were. Maybe just what we did would make it all come together. Plus, Emma Jane had seen it.

"You sister probably has a pretty damn good idea," I implied, hoping that Emma Jane would be able to tell her sister what she had seen.

Emma Jane stiffened with fear. Okay, so Emma Jane hadn't quite pieced together that we were like that beast that she had run into on her journey. I had freaked her out with my confirmation. Why couldn't I have a gift like Alice's or even Bella's? Being able to tell what my action would lead to? Emma Jane was too frightened to speak.

"Well, now that you've managed to scare the living shit out of her, would you mind enlightening me? Megan demanded.

Before anyone could come right out and confess, I continued with my plan.

"Think about the things that you've noticed. You've asked us things before. Why we don't eat so much, why do we only use the upstairs bathrooms, which I think you actually found out, except that Emmett covered pretty damn well. Why we have such a large collection of music, why we have time for everything, how we're so good at things –"

"How we can stay healthy while doing sports and not eating much," Alice added.

"And I've caught you thinking about how I always seem to know what you're thinking," Edward reminded her.

"And Bella sometimes, too," Megan corrected.

"Think about the obvious, too," Emmett chimed in.

"The pale skin," Bella noted.

"How we're so damn hot," Rose threw in, her siblings glaring at her.

"Our strength," I concluded.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Something supernatural. I figured that out a long time ago. But myths are never right, so how could I really figure out what you guys are without any thing to compare you to? I know what's weird about you; I just don't know what it all adds up to!" Megan exclaimed.

"Bella, can I get a little help here?" I requested. She saw what I was requesting and showed what Emma Jane had seen to Megan, considering Emma Jane was still too shocked and shaken to reveal it herself.

When Megan comprehended everything, she snapped her eyes shut and hugged her sister tighter. When her eyes opened, they were full of fury. She made sure her sister was steady before letting go of her to walk toward Alice.

I felt like protecting Alice. Megan's emotions were not light. But I saw Alice throw me a warning look. She could protect herself if she needed to. What could Megan do? And Alice would know better than I would when she was in any real danger.

"How could you?" Megan pondered. "You can see things coming right? Why didn't you stop this?"

I was amazed that she didn't come out and start blaming us for being exactly like the monster in the valley. She was more angered by the fact that her sister had had to witness such a sight.

"I told everyone the instant I found out! We worked as quickly as we could. Plus we had to look less conspicuous because we were still trying to get people out of the house! If I hadn't done anything, it would have been worse. I don't even have to tell you how it could have been worse. I think you get the picture," Alice explained, trying to lighten up Megan's anger. The only thing that Megan had a right to be angry about was that we had lied to them. She couldn't be mad at Alice for the actions that she took.

"Now we have to be really careful," Bella murmured, barely loud enough for Megan to hear.

"Why. It's not like we're going to tell anyone or anything," Megan pointed out, still slightly red in frustration.

"That's not the point…it's kind of illegal for us to tell anyone, or for us to allow anyone to know. It's not like our 'enforcement agency' goes looking around for this thing, but we can't draw attention to ourselves or Aro will figure everything out. There's no hiding anything from Aro. It's bad enough that Charlie knows…" she trailed off.

"Your father knows?" Megan wondered. She and Emma Jane had been introduced to Charlie the last time they had stayed with us.

"But Evalyn doesn't. Not yet. She wouldn't understand that we're not monsters," I added.

"We don't hunt people. We feed off of the blood of animals," Edward explained.

"What do these other vampires do if they find out that we know?" Emma Jane finally squeaked.

"We all die. You two, Charlie, our entire family," Alice answered quietly.

"How do you know this?" Emma Jane piped.

"Because we've been through it before…with Bella," Edward said painfully. "I think you two should sit down. We owe you some sort of explanation."


	25. Alice Cullen: Because I Said So

Alice Cullen

Chapter 25 - Because I Said So!

It had been a LOOOOOOOONG night. It's nights like those that make vampires wish that they could sleep.

It was a good thing that it was a Friday. Bella explained the whole story about how she and Edward met while she was a human. How they had a run it with the Volturi who made Edward promise to change Bella. To throw in emphasis, they also told Emma Jane and Megan about some of the Volturi's talents, such as Jane's.

When Emma Jane and Megan were finally calm enough to catch some shut-eye (though nightmares were probably unfolding themselves behind their eyelids...), we quickly cleaned up what we were too busy to do before.

"I'm sorry about your party," Bella apologized while we threw away some of the streamers.

"Why? It wasn't anything you could control. Plus, it was like fate or something. A party about two vampires coming together and of course another vampire had to crash it," I replied. We hadn't told anyone that this party had been what Jasper and I had agreed on for our celebration. But of course Edward and Bella knew. It had started out so well. It worked fine because Jasper was dressed up as a soldier. Sure when we had met, he was dressed in more casual southern attire, but the imagery was nice. But of course, with my personality, people would question if I dressed up as a psych ward fugitive.

"Still. Everyone deserves a better celebration," Bella commented glumly.

Monday rolled around strangely soon. Emma Jane and Megan didn't want to leave the house. Emmett had made the deadly mistake of telling them that vampires generally travel in groups of around three, implying that, though we had slain the monster feeding the other night, there were probably still some in the area. Somewhere it also slipped that generally nomads travel with their mates, so there would probably be an angry vampire wanting vengeance at this point.

Finally, we were able to convince them that we could protect them. Between my ability to see the future, and Bella and Edward's ability to hear thoughts, we would be able to predict an approach. Then, with our vast numbers and Emmett for strength, we would be able to wipe them out with very little effort.

"Emma Jane, you might want to wear my boots," I advised, handing her my steel-toed pair, though, due to my own genius, the alterations made them look like any other pair of boots. "You should be the same shoe size as me."

"Why am I wearing these?" she questioned.

"Because I said so," I answered. Realizing that I had seen something, she trusted me. "Oh, and Megan, wear these under your arm-warmers," I told Megan, handing her a bunch of rings.

The twins had this hobby of making arm-warmers out of socks. Emma Jane made finger-less ones made out of oddly colored or patterned knee highs, while Megan preferred to cut the toes off of fun toe-socks. This worked to my advantage. Megan's arm-warmers were like gloves with the fingers almost cut completely off, but enough was left to conceal the rings, whereas Emma Jane's wouldn't.

Despite all of our reassurance, Emma Jane and Megan weren't exactly that sure of leaving the car. There were some classes where they would be left Cullen-less. They weren't that thrilled with the idea of being attacked. Megan finally whimpered out, while Emma Jane remained in her seat, stubbornly crossing her arms across her chest.

"Come on, Emma Jane," Megan prompted. "It's not that hard. Think about it. You unbuckle the seat belt, step out, and close the door. It even has an automatic lock! You don't have to do much. They'll be able to protect us...Just get out of the car!"

"Why?" Emma Jane protested.

"Because I said so. Besides, if our grades drop just because you chose to be stubborn, Mom and Dad won't let us stay with the Cullens anymore…"

"I'm not even sure that I want to un-seatbelt," Emma Jane complained. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Emmett mouthing "Un-seatbelt?" to Rosalie. Rosalie shrugged.

"Mother of peanut butter and cookies. You're such a pair of pants," Megan complained, rolling her eyes, dragging her sister out of the Volvo.

"Gah, let go of me! Jeez, you're so denim!" Emma Jane wailed.

"Pair of Pants? Denim?" Emmett wondered aloud this time.

"Inside joke," Emma Jane explained, still bitter about leaving the car. "Our parents wanted us to stop swearing, or at least bring it down a notch…"

"They miserably failed on me," Megan proudly announced.

"Anyway, they told us to turn some swear words into words that didn't sound as strong, so that we didn't feel tough when we said them," Emma Jane continued. "For a while they told us to turn 'bitch' into 'britch.' Then, when we used it as a plural, it was 'britches,' which is really just a pair of pants. You don't feel that high and mighty when you're calling someone a pair of pants."

"It expanded then to different types of pants: slacks, denim, Capri's. Emma Jane is the only one that I use those on, just because I don't like degrading her. But because we both know what it really means, it gets the point across," Megan added.

When the twins were finally 100% assured that we would eviscerate any blood-sucking bastard that walked their way, they finally walked to their classrooms.

It was a good thing that we had all been through high school before. Bella, Edward and I weren't concentrating on anything school-related at all unless it was which class we were supposed to be in. Even then, it didn't matter much. We were too busy reaching out, trying to see anything that could relate to danger for, well, really anybody, but especially Emma Jane and Megan. Carlisle would be very disappointed if we just let innocent people die, but if we were being honest with ourselves, we would probably fight a lot harder to protect those two.

Of course the battle is a lot harder when you're fighting humans, too. There was a reason that I geared up the twins with weapons.

Emma Jane and Megan were still pretty shook up. And some people just don't know when to shut their mouths. Our most common nemesis was one of those people. He didn't know when to stop harassing Bella and Edward, and now he couldn't stop harassing the twins. Even Aro would probably make Jane give the twins pity if he saw their frightened faces...that is, if the fright had to do with something other than their knowledge of vampires. But Andrew. Nooooooooooo.

No one needed my ability to foresee that Andrew was just looking for trouble. All of us by now recognized the look he gets when he's about to stir something up. Why hadn't he learned that pulling the crap that he does only hurts him in the end?

Well lookit what I have." The voice made Emma Jane and Megan cringe quite visibly and slowly turn around, deadly looks on their faces. Emma Jane's eyes practically bugged out of her skull. Megan's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. Andrew had Emma Jane's sketch book.

"Bastard," Megan hissed as Emma Jane rifled through her messenger bag, confirming that he did indeed have her precious sketch book.

"How the hell did y--? Oh, you did _not_ go through my bag!" Emma Jane growled. "You, sir, are so royally fucked."

"Honestly? What would possess you to do something that dumb? What would be in it for you?" Megan protested, restraining Emma Jane.

I heard Bella giggle behind me and I, for once, wished that I shared Edward's and her talent, and knew what was on her mind. Suddenly I saw the conversation that was about to take place and couldn't help laughing, myself. I couldn't wait for the idiot to make a fool of himself.

"I did it to get back at you. One of you lousy britches told Alice about my marvelous little surprise for the punch." It took Andrew a couple of seconds to realize that his speech had been inturrupted by Bella's thought projections.

Just about everyone was laughing at that point. At least everyone with the last name Hale, Cullen, or Sanders.

"I don't know what made me say that…" he admitted. We all knew. And it made us laugh harder. "I meant to say 'britch'… 'britch'… Jeez, what the hell is wrong with me? Anyway, you probably know what I was trying to say."

Yeah. We all knew. After all, Emma Jane and Megan were behind it.

"It's no wonder you're so messed up if you have a regular supply of that shit," Megan slammed.

As much as Andrew couldn't have possibly known what had gone down over the weekend, I couldn't help but be proud of Emma Jane as she slammed her steel toe into Andrew's knee, and Megan as she left bruises on Andrew's cheekbone with the rings on her knuckles. I kinda did feel bad for him though. This had been the how-many-ith time that he'd been beaten up by the Cullens or at least because of us?

"Now hand over the sketchbook," Emma Jane demanded, adding her death glare, which for some reason always made Megan laugh.

"Why should I?" Andrew taunted, towering over the five foot tall girl.

"Because I said so," came Emmett's booming voice. Andrew cowered and handed Emmett the sketchbook instead before running off.

"Who knew that the lamest of phrases could be so threatening?" Megan noted.

"Thanks, Emmett," Emma Jane said.

The rest of the school day went by in a respectable silence. My mind rest assured as no plan in the future had been set for the assassination of our friends. The twins walked bravely to their classes, completely confident now that nothing would happen to them.


	26. Megan Sanders: Guilt

**Sorry for the delay. My computer crashed a few days ago. And I have a million other fanfics I'm writing. And my choir does A LOT of traveling during the Christmas season. And I had my school's winter musical, which was very time consuming. But don't worry. My school was cancelled for a few days so I've been busy writing and for those of you who read multiple of my stories, updates are coming soon. Anyway. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Unfortunately, I'm running out of ideas, so unless I miraculously come up with one, this will be one of the last few chapters. Thank you so much for all of your positive feedback! Now. To the story!**

* * *

Megan Sanders

Chapter 26 - Guilt

Our parents nearly flipped when the Cullens dropped us back off that weekend.

Emma Jane's hair had been clipped away by Alice before the party (which felt like ages ago), and we barely spoke at all because we were still scared shitless. Our parents had always been really proud of our extrovertedness and unique personalities. Seeing us shut down was tragic to them. And they really didn't like things like haircuts being done without their permission. Even if it was an inch at most.

I think they would have been more worried, though, if we had told them that we were scared of being exsanguinated by some filthy cretin seeking revenge in the middle of the night. I didn't care what the Cullens looked like. I didn't care how they acted. When it came to good vs. bad vampires, I saw the Cullens versus the scary shit that you see in the movies. Sparkly in the sun versus POOF! Coffins versus no beauty sleep and still devastatingly good looks. Garlic fearing creatures versus really good cooks. Crucifix hating monsters versus "children" of the son of a preacher.

I felt bad for ever having suspected something bad about the Cullens. I wasn't guilty about being observant, or suspecting anything at all, but I was ashamed that I had ever thought that people like they would sink to the low of killing humans. I was also kind of disappointed at myself because of how much of a pry I was. I wouldn't let it go. I understand that it's okay to be curious, but they were clearly annoyed by it, and they were nothing but hospitable to my sister and I. And without their help, Emma Jane would be completely drained in an alley right now.

And yeah, sure we were at the Cullens' party when she wanted the fucking cookie dough, but really. Emma Jane was a cookie dough freak. She would have been out getting the addicting salmonella inducing substance any Friday night, no matter where she was. So it wasn't the Cullens' fault at all. And they saved her anyway.

Though it was Spring, in Alamosa, Colorado, it gets really cold. Even after winter, subzero temperatures often occur. I really needed a snow day. Which often _doesn't _occur because people are always prepared for snow days with salt and gravel ready to be dumped on the roads and the snow plows never in storage.

I looked out my window on Monday morning and to my dismay, found the snow level just the same is it had been since the weekend storm. I got ready for school in a normal fashion.

I'm naturally always in a bad mood. Unless I have something to look forward to or people are actually _not _being immature idiots for a change, my tolerance level generally goes down from there. Cold temperature is one of those things that lowers the level of my good mood. Which really sucks when your parents coach gymnastics for a COLO-fucking-RADO university. Not that the place isn't great or that the people suck. I just hate cold. Like Bella did before physical changed made her not really care about the temperature.

After I ate breakfast, took my shower, got dressed and brushed my teeth, I turned on the news just hoping that the scroller would be on, announcing that the Alamosa school district was closed. Unfortunately, like I preditced, it wasn't. And I finished getting ready.

When Emma Jane and I went outside to head to our bus stop, I couldn't believe what I saw.

"Holy mother of shitturds!" I exclaimed.

"Where the hell did all of this come from?" Emma Jane wondered.

There was at least three inches of fresh snow that had fallen since I had woken up. And they still hadn't closed school?

Our bus got stuck behind a pileup on the way to the school. So when we finally arrived on campus, enough snow had been stomped away and turned into snowballs by enthusiastic students to reveal a nice thick layer of ice.

"Oh god," I heard Emma Jane sigh.

" 'Oh god' is what people say when they really want to say 'oh shit,' " I commented.

"Well, then. Pardon my French, but oh shit," she corrected herself.

"That's better," I applauded. "Except in French it would be something like 'Zut, zut! Merde alors!' "

"Jeez, Ily, stop stalling. Sooner or later, we're gonna have to slip and slide and most likely fall on our asses all the way to class," she reminded me. Why does she do that. Oh wait, it's the job of sisterhood to be annoying.

Luckily for us, Alice and Bella were right by our bus. Waiting.

"We figured you could use a hand," Bella suggested, taking Emma Jane by the elbow while Alice supported me.

Not that I didnt greatly appreciate it, but Alice's help just made me feel worse. Out of all of the Cullens and Hales I was especially close with Alice, and when I suspected something, I suspected it of everyone, including Alice. How could I have ever thought of Alice being something terrible. I don't even know what I thought they were, but I knew it wasn't something that I'd be all too happy about. I should have known that whatever was going on, it wouldn't affect the Cullens' charity, hospitality, or generosity.

Bella and Alice delivered us safely to our first period classes without so much as expecting anything in return. I was pretty sure that even though it wasn't until our afternoon block began that either of us would have class with a Cullen, we could expect a similar escort throughout the entire day from class to class. That made me feel really bad.

The worst part was that we were taking so much of their time. Alice, Edward, and Bella were doing everything they could to predict hell breaking loose, and then to try and prevent it. It also took time for them to cook for the extra people when we were around, and we often asked them for help studying since they had all been through high school multiple times. When I had told Emmett this once, he had said not to worry about it, that they had forever so time wasn't an issue.

But that just made me feel the guilt more. Sure they had forever, but if eveybody looked at it that way, it would be as if they were always being taken advantage of.

And anyways, they admitted that generally when people found out about their secret, they packed up and moved. There were only two reasons why they hadn't left: we were in danger for the time being, and they specifically cared for us, whereas in other cities and towns, they had isolated themselves.

That packed on some more weight. We were the reason that they were staying. While that made me feel special, it also made me feel guilty.

We rode with Edward and Bella back to their house like always. Every day we did homework at their house with them. Today we didn't have much homework, which put me in a slightly better mood, but there was nothing better than hanging with the Cullens and Evalyn, whom they were planning to adopt soon. They still hadn't explained exactly how they were going to tell Evalyn their little secret, or what was going to happen with her when they did, whether they were going to change her or not, but at least for a long time she would have a steady home with vampires all around her who loved her and who would protect her to the ends of the earth. Which are non existant.

Charlie came over after a while and we chatted with him while we waited for Emmett and Jasper to get off of the freaking Wii. We never played against any of our genetically inhanced friends knowing instantly that we would lose unless they let us win. And that's no fun winning a forfeited game, now is it?

It was a lot more fun talking with Charlie now that we knew what he knew. It was kind of sad when we heard his side of the story. How he found out by first hearing that Bella was claiming to be someone else's daughter. He felt worse for us, though, considering not only were we scared beyond all belief, but we were still in danger. Charlie's life had never been compromised.

Evalyn came around begging us to play games with her. Charlie played hide and seek with her for a while, but he gave up when he climbed up and down the stairs looking for her. His knees were not in the best shape of all time. Finally, he convinced me to go upstairs and chase her out of whatever hiding spot she was in.

So I did. But the chasing downstairs...

I felt REALLY bad as a screaming Evalyn tumbled down the stairs.


	27. Edward Cullen: Bloodshed

Edward Cullen

Chapter 27 - First Bloodshed

"Emma Jane, will you please tell your sister to stop. You're the only one that she'll ever listen to," I begged.

Megan had not stopped apologizing ever since the day that Evalyn had fallen down the stairs. Even after Carlisle had give Evalyn the clean bill of health, completely certain that there would only be a few bumps and bruises, Megan had still been afraid to touch her.

"Ily be quiet," Emma Jane ordered.

"What?! Isn't it natural to feel bad?" she questioned.

"Not for this long. And I should know," Jasper informed her.

"58 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL! 58 BOTTLES OF BEER! TAKE ONE DOWN PASS IT AROUND! 57 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL!"

"Why oh why oh why? Today of all days," Megan complained. She rubbed her head as if she had a migraine, but Bella and I knew it was just stress.

"Seriously, one would think that after 99 bottles of beer, you would be pretty wasted, if not dead," Emma Jane commented, rolling her eyes at the insanity behind us.

"I don't know, 99 bottles of beer divided by the, what, thirty people on the bus, that's around three bottles of beer a person, and that's not too bad, as long as you're not driving. Then everyone's dead whether they got any of the beer or not."

We were on a field trip to the local history museum for National History Day. Every student in the school was going to go at some point during the week. Due to my charming abilities, I was able to make sure that all of us were together that way nothing would happen to Emma Jane and Megan.

National History Day never really made sense to me. National History Day became this big scholastic competition that lasted months, and for some students, their entire school year. That's not much of one history day, but more like a history year. Which made no sense because it was annual. An annual year. How idiotic.

"You still have to let me cook tonight," Megan insisted.

"Why? We're not going to care what it tastes like," Rose reminded her. "It'll be gross to us either way."

"Yeah, but that'll get something off of your hands."

"We could, without a doubt, do it faster than you," Alice pointed out.

"Yeah, but I'm making baked potatoes. You still have to worry about bake time. Vamps can't speed ovens up," she snapped.

"I would just let her do what she wants," Emma Jane suggested. "It'll get her to stop apologizing at the very least."

Megan tried to give Emma Jane a death glare, but it wasn't as menacing as it was meant to be. Emma Jane had better glares than that. Emma Jane copied the glare and sent Megan into fits of laughter. She was the only one who ever laughed at Emma Jane's death glare. We never knew why. I couldn't even pick it out of her head. I was guessing it was something instinctual. Growing up together she learned that the glare wasn't frightening or something.

But it was true. Once we agreed to let Megan cook, she was instantly more cheerful and we didn't hear another apology from her for the rest of the day. She even played with Evalyn without being scared of hurting her, and Evalyn seemed more than forgiving, which I guess helped in the cheering up process.

Dinner time rolled around and Megan began to cook. While the potatoes were in the oven, she began chopping up the lettuce for a salad. It never failed to amaze me how much humans needed to eat.

With how clumsy the twins were, even without Alice, we should have been able to forecast Megan using some sharp object to cause bodily harm. It would have been so much easier to tell her to make something that didn't require knives. We shouldn't have let Megan cook.

Alice should have seen it coming.

We all should have been able to see it coming.

It was a good thing that I was fast.

"Shit!" she exclaimed. She swung around and held her finger up. Just then a single drop of blood seeped through a tiny cut. She slid to the sink to run water over it. "Klutz reflexes. Years of 'hurry, before you bleed on the carpet.' Nothing got into the salad. I mean, you guys have to agree with me that was epic success!"

It was only then that Megan finally looked up and saw why it wasn't an epic success. It was the worst of epic failures. And finally she realized that.

"Oh mother of vampires," she mumbled, the irony almost amusing.

"Yes, dear?" came a voice from behind her. Megan turned around and saw Esme, with the scariest expression that I had ever seen on her face before.

It was deja vu. A klutz who knew we existed, but didn't want to move away from, in our house, and a tiny little cut. And other vampires were probably after her, just like last time. Only this time, I was prepared.

Scanning the room for other traps as I went, I ran to Megan and threw her over my shoulder, grabbing a kitchen towel as I went. I handed it to Megan. Before she could even completely wrap it around her finger, I was in Carlisle's office.

"Keep Megan up here. I'm going to get the girls calm enough to fight the guys off, if that's even possible. And I know anyone of us could break it down, but whatever you do, don't open the door!" I ordered. Even though Carlisle was centuries older than I, he respected my advice and knew that it was probably one of the best plans that any one of us could have come up with. He had taught me well, and having to maneuver around a year and a half with a human Bella, I was the most experienced.

Bella was no help. Even though she was completely cured of all human-blood desires, she was still completely freaked out. So I focused on finding Rose and Alice, and together we were able to push Emmett and Jasper out of the house quite easily.

Away from the smell of Megan's blood, they were a lot easier to restrain, so Alice stayed with Jasper, Rose with Emmett, while I went back inside to find Bella.

Emma Jane was upstairs, outside Carlisle's office, begging to be let in, but he had been following my directions, no exceptions.

"It's okay, Carlisle, the guys are outside now," I said in no more than a casual volume.

Bella found me without much of a problem and ran to me. I wrapped my arms around her, as tight as I could.

"Is it always this scary?" she wondered. She was so shook up that her mental shield was down, easily letting me see what she was scared about. Flashes of the blood on Megan's finger ran through her mind. She had ran to the other side of the house the instant that she realized what was happening. She didn't want to even risk anything happening.

"Only when it's someone you really care about," I assured her, kissing her on the forehead, and each cheek, beforetouching her lips to mine. "Other than that, it's just frustrating."


End file.
